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[nhp651]

well, Been putting this part off far too long.

Earlier in the build I pointed to having a removable floor in all the cabin wells..........

After fitting the decks I soon realised that the provision for removing the decks in the fore cabins of both the Mary Stanford and the H F Bailey was an absolute none starter....as the decks could no longer be got out..........it's just lucky that I had put the floors in before I laid the decks or I wouldn't have got them in other than in pieces.not the best way.

becaue the fore cabin of the Field marshal is removable, so is the deck of the fore cabin............but on reflection I don't think this is needed either.
However, the rear cabin well decks do need to be removable but in the configuration I had had them, I couldn't get them into the aft well decks because of the rear overhang of the decks, and so re designed them today so that there was more of a perimeter to the removable deck with small supports glued to the under sides of the perimeter deck to hold the removable part.

Also this perimeter gives the space to fit the side benches in all the well decks and any other detailing on the well deck floors including gratings, wheel columns and such will come out with the deck.

So today, I spent today altering those features.

I also made the grating for the steering platform that goes to the aft of the fore cabin of the Field Marshal.

[nhp651]

I suppose ( and also believe) that models should have a focal point to draw people into the boat ( or what ever you are modelling), and these lifeboats are no exception..the usual item is the detailing inside the cockpit ( which will come later) but there is one thing on the lifeboat Mary Stanford which really stands out on the model and that is the main hand cranked windlass situated on the engine casing. This is a little minature kit in it's self and once detailed with paint will really draw people into it.

It took me a good number of hours to draw this item from photos, and plans before I figured out a) how it worked and b) how to model it.
I then made from the drawings and photographs the masters in plasticard so that I could mould it in polyU and/or white metal for the model.

It then took around 20 - 25 hours to make the masters from plasticard.....over a period of two weeks working in an evening.

This set of masters I put into a circular mould for my centrifugal caster, before casting in white metal and them polyU ( just to see the physical weight of the object). The white metal set was , I felt too heavy a fitting in total, to place on the top side of the model and so resorted to using the polyU fitting set.

In the end I made up a windlass from the fittings cast, plus several lengths of 1.8mm and 2.8mm rod and a piece of 20mm diameter plumbers upvc water pipe for the drum centre, and below is the part finished windlass sprayed in grey undercoat.

This is my Pièce de résistance

[nhp651]

Today, I have spent the time getting the engine room casing of the mary Stanford to fit, not only to the combings but also into the rear cabin of the Mary Stanford.
This meant fitting wooden stops into the inside of the moulding, a stop on the deck, a spacer on the side wall to keep the casing in the correct position on the deck, a small vertical wall to the aft end of the casing and an angled and horizontal facia to the aft end of the casing.
These last two peices, made from 1.8mm  ply hide any spaces when the cabin and the engine casing meet.
Sadly the casing has, over the past six years since I moulded it, sagged in the centre of the top and so I had to skim it today like a plasterer skimming an uneven wall...took about 3mm down the centreof the moulding to get the whole thing flat. you can see the amount from the picture five where the horizontal facia lies well above the centre line of the casing.
I felt that the joining of these two grp mouldings would never make a good permenant fixing and so they will be left as two seperate fixtures.

photos in order are.... spacer to sides of combings to fix position of casing.
                                fitting angled facia to casing
                                fitting small vertical wall to line up casing to inner foreward bulkhead of well deck
                                drilling casing to gain a purchase for gluing horezontal facia to casing.
                                fixing facia with polyester filler
                                facia in place and sanded down.also top of casing levelled off with polyester filler.

[irishcarguy]

A couple of questions Neil, Where did you get the casting machine & what does a machine like that cost ?. Do you make the moulds yourself & if so how ?. Is the material that you use easy to use & is it expensive & readily available ?. From these questions it is obvious I don't know squat about the process. Pure genius, thats what you are, Mick B.

[nhp651]

A couple of questions Neil, Where did you get the casting machine & what does a machine like that cost ?. Do you make the moulds yourself & if so how ?. Is the material that you use easy to use & is it expensive & readily available ?. From these questions it is obvious I don't know squat about the process. Pure genius, thats what you are, Mick B.

Hi Mick......to answer your questions in order:

here is the supplier and the machine I use.bought it in 1994 with my severence pension lump sum when I retired from teching on ill health grounds.

http://www.tiranti.co.uk/subdivision_product_list.asp?Content=Centricast&Subcategory=64&Subdivision=

Yes, I make the moulds myself, using all the tools and rings/plates that I bought with the caster/melt pot.there is a full instruction book for people like yourself who live on the other side of the pond, or if you fancied the trip to reading, they will give lessons, free of charge at their place of business on how to make a mould and then cast it.....very very nice people to deal with.

The materials used are very readily available from different outlets..just search for RTV rubber for moulding ( RTV= Room Temperature Vulcanising) although I ALWAYS  buy mine from Tiranti's as their service is so good, never had any problems with it or the delivery and it is slightly cheeper than other outlets in this country. They cost me ( at the moment) about £100-120 for a 5 kilo drum, and this will make around 5 -6 x 10" round moulds or 7 -8  x 7" rounds or depending on thickness of mould for moulding such deep things as vent cowls, around 30 + box hand moulds.....and you can get quite a lot of mouldings out of a mould........before they need refreshing. I have had 100+ white metal castings out of some early stuff and they are still working.

I'll put up a step by step sequence on making a mould if you are interested.

The system is quite expensive ( to the average modeller, who just wants to do a few,) but I was setting up a business in 1994 and needed a caster to cast multiple castings......and to be honest, it has been worth it's weight in gold.....a brilliant machine.
But for those who wish to make just a few repetative moulds, then leg  bricks, plastecine and a 1 kilo tub is all that's needed to get started........then the fun starts..........and it is fun believe me.

Neil.

[nhp651]

The two pics posted here finish off the rear Bulkhead for the Mary Stanford, and the front well deck with putting in a shelf. this shelf will hold the Oil Tank, subsidiary tank and hand pump, for dispelling oil over the side of the lifeboat to "calm heavy seas" when going in for a rescue..........This dispensing of oil was used to some effect for many years, and most boats carried a tank of some sort, especially in the period that I am building. 1930's - 1949.

Any small gaps in side the rear cabin between the bulkhead and the cabin grp moulding will be disguised by the actual framework  and bracing of the cabin which will be inserted later as detailing

[nhp651]

In my striven aim to get the 3 boats ready for painting the insides of the well decks I had to finish off the rear cockpit bulk head of the Field Marshal today.

This also needed the existing bulkhead to be raised and a horezontal section fitting to meet up with the cabin moulding when placed ontop the deck.

There will be detailing that goes onto this area so needed to be done today, before all inner well decks could finally be sanded and sealed with cellulose wood sealer.

Finally for the woodworking part of today I fitted the grating that I made the other day, into the aft end of the fore cabin of the Field Marshal.

But the building didn't stop there.whilst I was waiting for timbers to glue and sealer to dry, I knocked up a small "lift and force" hand pump which will be connected to the oil storage tanks in the fore cabins of the Mary Stanford and H F Bailey, and the aft cabin of the Field Marshal. It will go into the next rubber mould that I am making. It was made purly from plasicard sheet and tubing with a little brass rod thrown in.

[nhp651]

aven't done much the last couple of days.....still recovering from my aging hippy sojourn to see the tribute Pink floyd gig..........getting too old for those sort of things, lol.
then this morning spent most of my time driving around different outlets looking for a light grey enamel paint to paint the inside of all the well decks.......with no success.

so all I have done is clean up all the ragged edges of the cabin openings ready for detailing the inside of the cabins.....for this I used a Dremmel roller disc pad to get around the curves and a b*****d toothed file ( the ones with sharp course toothed blades) which went through the grp well, and soon took me down te the masked lines on the mouldings.

Tomorrow it's the time to fit the rear cabin for the Mary Stanford so that it is housed on the deck without any movement, and then to sand the inside of each cabin and skim with a filler for a smooth effect before ribbing them all up.

[nhp651]

this eventually  will be the effect inside the cockpits of all the six cabins on the three lifeboats, and will be hopefully achieved with the aid of some picture mounting card (that I obtained FOC from a local picture framing shop this morning) a red mahogany stain, some Humbrol Teak colourd enamel, clear varnish and plenty of prayers.lol
watch this space.

[nhp651]

A MESSAGE FOR FURBALL

Lance.........could you please do a little digging for me as to the colour of the anti fouling on the afloat boat Mary Stanford.........I have old black and white shots of her that show what looks like a dark colour which could be green lead antifouling.

The Rankin model that we have talked about had green antifouling which was somewhat the norm in those days,,
and yet I have some later photos of the Mary Stanford when she was partially restored about 30 years ago before being left to rot, and she had red anti fouling.................I think she would look nice in green.

Also what colour blue would you use for the upper hull........they were a lot lighter in those days than they are now and would also like to colour match that up.......if you have contacts at Chatham, could you please do a little research for me .

many thanks in anticipation.

neil.

[furball]

if you have contacts at Chatham

Um....that would be me then 

There seems to be very little colour information on the early boats. Possibly the early antifouling was green because it had a high copper content. Certainly green was used as there's a series of pictures in E.W.Middleton's book 'Lifeboats of the World' of our Arun undergoing self-righting trials clearly showing a green bottom.

Possibly, when they went over to using tributyl tin based stuff the colour changed to red?

I think the green looks good - that's what what colour I'll be using on mine.

As for the blue, I'd say stick with the Oxford Blue. There seems to be anecdotal evidence that at one time the colour was 'French Aquamarine' (which still seems to be a dark blue), but this was in a letter by a bunch of artists at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, so might not be what the RNLI called it. It seems in the 19th century there might have been a pale blue - but nobody seems to know exactly what colour it was. There are no colour pictures from around this time, the only thing to go on are paintings.

For example :



This is by W.L. Wyllie in 1873 - and he was the main signatory of that letter mentioned earlier - so the dark 'French ultramarine' seems to be in use at this period.

also :



by Thomas Rose Miles c1888

Although William Broome's paintings of the Ramsgate Lifeboat in the late 1800's do seem to show a paler colour.

http://www.ramsgatelifeboat.org.uk/art-gallery.htm


What you cannot go by are the shades on early black and white photos, as they used an orthochromatic film which was insensitive to blue and shows it lighter and more sensitive to red which shows up darker.


Lance

[Netleyned]

Hi Lance
I saw a post of yours mentioning the Walmer boat.
Was this the Charles Dibden?
A 42ft Watson beach boat?
If it was I would love any info on the boat(model)
I have a very good reason for asking as I was involved
in a very involved conversion of said vessel

Ned

[nhp651]

thanks for that info, Lance...much appreciated....I have some shots of MS just after she came out of service with the lighter blue...will try having a match for that down at halfords...if I can't find one I revert back to oXford Blue, which is lighter than galaxy blue used on the modern boats.

thanks.
neil.

[furball]

I think that's been repainted Neil, and very, very faded.

The name's been painted in white, and it's had a couple of modern flags slapped on it.


Lance

[furball]

Hi Lance
I saw a post of yours mentioning the Walmer boat.
Was this the Charles Dibden?
A 42ft Watson beach boat?
If it was I would love any info on the boat(model)
I have a very good reason for asking as I was involved
in a very involved conversion of said vessel

Ned

Hi Ned,

The one I was talking about earlier was the 41' Beach Watson 'Charles Dibden Civil Service No. 2', O.N.762 - Walmer 1933-59, last seen in Dover, not the later 42' 'Charles Dibden Civil Service No. 32', O.N. 948, at Walmer from 59-75, became cabin cruiser 'Charlie Dee' in 1998.

Is this the one you did?


We do have a model of the Dungeness 42' Watson 'Mabel E. Holland' on display at Chatham.


Lance

[nhp651]

Think you might be right there lance............Will stick to Oxford Blue.

Anyway..........back to the model............There's a great deal of argument about kit build vs scratch build in modelling and sadly I have found in the past that some who scratch build think that they are in an elite e'chelon of modellers, which to me is somewhat sad.

I like both kit and scratch build and have always defended those who enjoy their modelling through kits.

However I do find that scratch building hones my personal skills and makes me think that little bit more than if I were building from a kit.......and that showed today, more than ever.

I was taught my modelling skills by two great men, and I mean great.

The first was my grandad who, when I was just 8 and starting to build models, was  himself, almost totally blind.

He had been, in his  own lifetime, a master cabinet maker and pattern maker, and once said to me......"I don't need eyes to see what i am making anymore, my hands are my eyes, and if something feels right, it is right, and you can always adjust how it feels"

The second "great" man who taught me another valuable lesson was Frank Hinchliffe......we had many an hour discussing models at his home in Meltham, and he once said to me........, "if you make a cock up on a model, you can always correct it for the public...and you can cover your mistake by making that mistake to look a believable plause on your model", and then he would add....."you know, Bulls*** baffles brains and if you put enough other detailing on your model, those little mistakes will be lost to all but the fanatical modeller....and they won't be buying my kits anyway...they'll be scratch building"

So the cockup that I have made on the mary Stanford rear well deck and cabin, comes into that catagory, but I confess, it has been somewhat of a little problem for the past few weeks.

When I measured out all the deck beams, decks and overlays and well deck wooden pieces, to co incide with fitting  up to my grp cabin mould I made a mistake on the measurements, and although the cabin is to the size shown on the plans, the actual well deck comes in undersize so that some spacers have had to be fitted to the cabin sides, and as such this then left a gap between the cabin aft sides and the well deck....a glaring gap, which I had to do something with, and so, modellers license came into show with a solution to put a shelf around the cabin wall which will cover that gap.
Fortunately this can be altered on the screen printed ply parts to overcome that gap, but it would have meant ripping out the whole well deck, decking and sub decking for me to alter it on this boat.....something I wasn't prepared to do, and as such.....it's a case of "it's my boat......and it's staying like that"

Luckily the kit models would be modified, and this is what buiulding a prototype is for...to bring out the problems and foibles of a development.
the following shots are to show the coverup of a cockup, lol

As for the other two models, the HF Bailey and the Field Marshal....I got thode measurements bob on, and the cabins fit snug and tight.

[nhp651]

Might not get chance to post anything for the rest of the day, as it's my daughters 15th birthday today, and I'm the taxi for her and her friends for their Alpaca walking and horse riding trip so will do it now.

 But between glue setting and sanding, I managed to get the protection bars on the portholes( generic to the Anne Lettitia Russell) glued on using cyano, and also drilled and enlarged the holes in the cabins of all the boats for the portholes to fit.....it's starting to take shape now.

I had to cut these into the cabins before I put the inside details in place..that's the next job.

[Netleyned]

Sorry for butting in Neil
I just wanted to answer Lance.
It was the Charlie Dee that I was involved in.
Thanks for the info

Yours Aye

Ned

[Rottweiler]

   Just like to say, just how lucky we are, to have not one, but three Lifeboat Builds, taking place on a step by step basis. Although a p#ss poor modeller myself, this ongoing build has given me new insight in "how to do it" I am sure it is giving confidence to new modellers,and even those more experienced,are able to learn something. THIS,I would call a MASTERCLASS.
   I know you are a pal, Neil, but a big THANKS for showing us how.
Mick

[nhp651]

I don't mind you "butting in" Ned.............it all adds to the information that can be gleaned from a post/blog such as is..........if people don't like going off "tack" everynow and then...................they shouldn't be "sailors"  

cheers Mick for those kind words as well.
neil.

[nhp651]

just going on what Mick said about info...........I forgot to say, that up until yesterday when I drilled and enlarged the holes in the GRP cabins for the ports, I had always drilled undersize and then enlarged the holes to the correct diameter using a piece of abrasive paper rolled around a pencil to keep straight and stif.....yesterday i found one of these in abag of old bits that someone had given me some time ago    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140316270491?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2648

and I used that......it was pure magic and I cut those to size..........all 25 holes in around 30 minutes......a saving of around 3 hours........so I ordered some more off ebay, lol

[nhp651]

Well, I had more time on my hands than I thought I would today, so decided that I couldn't put off the start of detailing the insides of the cockpits any further.....so made a start.

Where the inner cockpit can be seen ( on all of the boats there is a little of one or other of the cockpits that is hidden by one of the bulkheads except for the Mary Stanford, where both interiors of the cockpits are totally visible to the viewer) the grp has to be smoothed off and then filled, before sanding "flat". I used a power file to remove any highlights in the grp layup, and then skimmed the whole of the visible areas with stopper putty which just filled the low parts of the mouldings.

Once dry and set I sanded off with 40 and 120 grade grit, to give a reasonably smooth finish.

Finally for the day, I started laying the ribs to the cockpit frame, using card and aliphatic resin glue....sticks card to grp very well.

The card I use is 2mm picture framing card, which I got from a local gallery FOC from the kind owner, who had just framed my beautiful print of the Mary Stanford on her most famous of rescues.

[nhp651]

Having laid the main king plank into all six of the cockpit mouldings I now cut strips of card 3.5mm wide and progressively clad the interiors of the cabins today.....the only one I did get finished ready for sealing was the Mary Stanford, and but for an hour's break for evening meal I started at 1.15 pm this afternoon and have just finished the first set of cabins and laid the longitudinal ribs on the other four cabins........  it's now 22.15 hours.......long and tedious work.

[Rottweiler]

looking good Neil ! If it is card you are using, how do you plan to stop it delaminating? Could you repeat the make of the glue you are using please?
Cheers,
Mick

[nhp651]

Hi Mick....the card will be sealed with sanding sealer after being stained with mahogany water soluable stain....then varnished..the inbetween paintwork will be painted with a teak coloured enamel.
the glue I use for this application is an Aliphatic quick grab resin glue.