Print

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

[Bryan Young]

Before drilling out the holes for those round glass windows or whatever you wish to call them I forgot to mention fitting a “landing” strip all round the inside top of the hull. Sort of. The main deck was to be a “false” deck in a manner of speaking, in that it would serve as both a strength member and the base for the actual cambered deck that would be laid on top of it. This false deck was to be one continuous sheet of 1/8th inch ply. The cambered deck was to be of 1/16th ply, and the actual planks on top of that would also be 1/16th inch thick. All this is fine for a larger model, but for a smaller one a base (false) deck of 1/16th suitably stiffened with ¼” square stuff would probably suffice. Particularly if no deck camber was to be shown. However, and this is just my personal opinion, most models would be visually improved by cambering the decks. I’ll get to that soon.
     The base deck really needs to “sit” on something more substantial than the thickness of the hull. On a model this size I used 3/8th square hardwood (comes in 8ft lengths and isn’t overly expensive). No hard and fast rule about the next bit! Just cut the square strip into whatever lengths can be fitted around the various curves of the hull. In my case the lengths ranged from 6” to about ½”. Again using the “hairy filler” (It’s actually Isopon P something or other and sticks more or less anything to anything, filling in gaps as you go along). No hull has vertical sides all the way round at deck level. Actually, that’s wrong. Now and again you’ll see a ship that does, but in this case the hull has quite a flare. So once the deck landing blocks of wood had set in place (clamps all over the place) the bits of wood that were sticking up had to be flattened off flush with the deck sheer. Using my indispensable power file made this job pretty easy. The power file can’t really be classed as a modelling tool, but used gently can make life so much easier..if a bit dusty. The next bit was interesting, and visually gave the impression that things were “moving along”. My base deck was a 12” x 6ft  plank. This was just plonked on top of the hull and weighted down enough so that it conformed to the sheer of the hull. Then it was a simple matter to draw a pencil line on the underside all round the hull. Now for a bit of “real ship” construction. On older ships the sheer strake (topmost level of hull plating) projected  3 inches or so above the deck and had a steel angle bar riveted or welded to both the deck and the sheer strake. But no need for that on a model. What I’m trying to get at is that this visible “upstand” is a lot thinner than the GRP hull, and so has to be made up and fitted separately, and flush with the outside of the hull. I’m going to use 1/32nd  ply for this. So the line I’ve drawn on the plank has to be brought in by that amount. In fact, it’s easier to just cut along the pencilled line and trim to shape/fit later. Both the accompanying photos show this small inset. Before permanently gluing down this base deck there’s a lot of marking off to be done. The centre line for starters. Then all the various openings in the deck. Positions of hatches, masts, anchor hawse pipes, masts etc. I prefer to do all this cutting out before I glue the deck down. And then it was a case of coating the deck bearer (what I earlier called the “landing) with 24 hour Araldite and after cleaning off the oozed out stuff (the oozed bits also effectively sealed off the visible bit of the GRP top) it was left to cure.
      So far in this build I haven’t used much in the way of modelling tools. A crosscut saw and a coping saw. Stanley knife and straightedge and that’s about it I think.
      Now I come to the cambering of the main deck. The standard camber back in the days when this ship was built was pretty much the standard used on sailing ships. That is, ¼” per foot of length of beam. In this case that would mean around 9”. So for convenience I used ¼” at maximum beam. This is why I marked out and cut all the deck openings. I’ll attempt to make this clearer! But first, a template has to be made. The curve of the camber has a constant radius for the whole length of the ship. This, in turn, makes the camber seem much more pronounced at the point of maximum beam than towards the bow/stern areas where it seems to be almost flat, even though it actually has the same curvature, only a shorter part of the curve being seen.
     The placing of these camber formers is now dictated primarily by the cut out bits of the base deck. Wherever there’s a cut out, a camber former will be placed at each end of the cut out, and at any other randomly chosen point so the cambered deck will have plenty of support to prevent any sagging. From one of the attached photos it would seem that I’ve made too many of these bearers, but the “redundant” ones in the amidships area will eventually be used on the boat deck to ensure continuity of the curve. The bearers in the photo are not glued down, just placed on the deck to check the shape. Cutting these bits became a real pain in the tripes. A very disheartening process. So much so that I vowed never to do it again unless I could afford a bandsaw.
After all these things were stuck down in their correct positions, short lengths of ¼” stuff were fitted running fore and aft at the sides of the cut out areas and filed/sanded/planed to the required height. And now I was ready to fit the 1/16th cambered deck. Temporarily laid and marked as for the base deck. Rough cut with a Stanley knife.
    This was fitted in 2 parts. The foredeck and the afterdeck, omitting the part that will later be occupied by the raised midships superstructure. Again the 24 hour version of  Araldite was used as the last thing I needed was for the epoxy to “go off” before I had everything bedded neatly down. Weights all over the deck and what seemed to be an entire roll of strong tape holding down the edges.
     Over the years I’d seen many models of ships with simulated planked decks, but almost invariably (especially in museums) the planking was just drawn lines with the underlying grain showing through. Quite often, the deck camber was also omitted. This always seemed such a shame on such otherwise splendid models. The same applied to the fitting of obviously phony windows and ports.
     But next came the most tedious, mind numbing and soul destroying part of the entire build. Cutting the deck planks. Domestic financial constraints had so far kept my desired bandsaw out of reach. Similarly with my desire to use Lime (or Basswood) for the planks. All I could afford was Obeche.
      The width of an average deck plank was around 4”, and the length somewhere around 20ft dependent on what was currently available to the builder I imagine. So as I work in feet’n’inches whenever possible, my deck planks were to be 1/8th inch wide and 5” long. It’s a long time ago now, but I think I cut over 2000 of them. All with my trusty Stanley knife and a simple jig made of 2 bits of aluminium pop-rivetted together and screwed to a baseboard.
     Laying the planks next.

[Bryan Young]

The enclosed drawing is one I made in reply to a query on this forum from someone who seems to have disappeared! It was actually for a sailing ship, but all the principles stand. The “shift of butts” is a moveable feast. Although in this instance a shift of only 2 seemed about right, on “Norseman” I used a shift of either 3 or 4. But it’s cold outside, so I’m not going out to the workshop to find out. But that’s immaterial anyway. Also, a normal ship wouldn’t have a broad “king plank”. I don’t suppose it matters one iota if you lay the first plank down the centre line or put the first 2 on either side of the line. But if you decide to give this a go, then always go one at a time as a mirror image because if you don’t, as sure as God made little apples, you’ll get yourself lost and screw it up.
     Back in the early 1970s when I decided that ship modelling was going to be my “hobby” little did I know where it would lead me. Quite an adventure so far. But the problem of showing the caulking between the planks became one of my “posers of the age”. Bearing in mind that the caulking is only about ¼” wide, at a model scale (especially at 1:48 or less) it’s almost impossibly thin. But no matter how narrow, the presence of caulking is more important than many other aspects of a model. At larger scales such as my 1:12 scale “Bluebird of Chelsea” I used black plasticard which did the job pretty well. But at 1:48 I was flummoxed for awhile. I believe others have used black paper, paint, soft pencil and even (horror of horrors) felt tip pens. But somehow or other I thought of black insulation tape, and haven’t looked back since then. Basically, it’s a dead simple thing to do (once you’ve cut the blessed planks), and I really do like simplicity. Much of what I write may appear convoluted and even complicated when put into words, but in practise is generally both common sense and simplicity. And pre-planning.
   Lay the cut planks on edge on a length of (plastic) insulating tape. You’ll get about 11 planks per width of tape. Run a scalpel down between the planks and hey, presto..instant caulking and ready to stick down. The plank ends are just as easily “caulked” by simply folding the tail ends of the tape over them and trimming off. Of course, as always there’s a downside. That normally comes from whoever makes your bed in the morning. Guaranteed that you’ll have shed little bits of black sticky tape all over the sheets, no matter how assiduously you’ve tried to remove them from the most impossible parts of your person. These little pernicious bits will also get into the washing machine. You have been warned!
    For fixing the planks to the cambered deck I use Bostik general purpose stuff (the purple tube), but I guess one brand’s as good as another. Once its set, you’ll need a chisel to remove any unwanted planks.
    Note the “margin planks” around the various deck structures and ships side. As I said, the drawing was made for a sailing ship…this ship, in common with most, had a “gutter” between the planking and the ships side. Nine inches or so wide seems to be a fairly common width.
    Once you’ve got everything stuck down and the glue has set you’ll be confronted with a bit of a mess. There’ll be bits of black tape sticking up everywhere. And in all probability the lines of planking won’t be dead straight. Don’t be in the least concerned about that. The planks are seldom die straight even on a real ship. Not grossly so, but enough to notice. A new Stanley knife blade used without the handle  will easily take off most of the surplus tape…then you can start sanding the whole lot down. I use a power sander at first and finish it off by hand. And then its layer after layer of either matt or satin laquer. Aerosol sort of thing. NOT gloss, even on a “gin palace” boat. It’s amazing how much laquer can be absorbed into the wood. Matt is better on a ship, but satin looks good on a river launch or yacht. “Bluebird of Chelsea” took 13 coats before it looked as good as I wanted it to be! Then hand sand it down again. Perhaps one more quick spray, and that’s your deck done.

[50mm]

after cutting out all that strip wood for the decking, at least you can say with out a doubt it was 'hand man' 

[Lord Bungle]

hairy filler= isopon p40

[Bryan Young]

Building a superstructure:-
Now that the main deck is now well and truly stuck down and well lacquered, I can at least start to think about the midships superstructure. Where it begins and ends in a fore and aft direction is easy enough….it’ll have to fit in were the deck planking is. But the width (beam) is a touch more problematical. The sheer strake upstand is where it has to fit snugly, and I haven’t fitted that yet. So, not really knowing what to do next (working out the “upsides” against the “downsides”) I did nothing for a few days….except I said (to myself) “blow this for a game of marbles” and went out and bought myself a bandsaw. And my modelling life was transformed forever. Naturally enough, the 2 “side” pieces had to be cut first. This was easy enough. The top of the hull in this area isn’t horizontal, but follows the curve of the sheer, in fact it’s the area where the sheer line begins to rise towards each end of the hull, not by a lot, but still noticeable. Out comes the 1/16” ply again. I started by cutting (Stanley knife again) an oversize rectangle and then taped it to the hull, overlapping the hull side. Then simply transferred the sheer line with the use of the old pencil. A nice curve for my first real task using the bandsaw. I was quite surprised how easy controlling the cutting was…and accurate. As I’ve gained more experience with the machine I’ve used it almost constantly for all sorts of cutting and trimming jobs, large to tiny. I’d reckon that a bandsaw should be very high on a modellers shopping list. But back to the ships side superstructure b’hds. It’s easy to mark off the required length of the thing as it’s to fit in the gap between the fore and afterdeck planking. But the ends have to be cut perpendicular to the waterline. Having my hull sliced along the waterline made my job a lot easier than it would have been if I was working on a full hull….particularly a tug or trawler that may very well have a non-horizontal keel. Next was to mark off the line of the boat deck parallel to the bottom part of the b’hd. The trusty (larger) set of springbow compasses made this easy. I imagine that not everyone has a set of drawing instrument in this electronic age, but it’s well worth getting a set. I’ve often seen them on second hand stalls going pretty cheaply. I bought mine during my navigating days. Not used that often, but they’re there when I need them. If you do go on the hunt for a set you may well be lucky to find a more modern one, without the ink nib attachments (obsolete to my mind), but really because the more modern sets generally have a sliding bar compass which is real handy when a curve of a radius up to about 10” is needed. To me, another bit of drawing kit I wouldn’t be without is a set of proportional dividers. Using these saves hours, possibly even days, of work when scaling up (or down) from a plan. With “Norseman” some of the plans were at 1:48, but others (eg the rigging plan) were at 1:96 (1/8th inch to the ft). So it was an easy job to just set the dividers at 0.5 scale and the business was done. New ones are pricey, but a second hand set may be found.
     Now before any of “you of a certain age” want to nail me to the front door for showing a picture of a drawing set (types of which you are all familiar with), some “younger” readers may not be. But also perhaps, even some of you old-hands may not have come across the proportional dividers. All part of model making!
       But back to the superstructure. Having cut out a flat slightly bent banana shape It was easy enough to copy it and cut out the second one. Using my fathers pillar drill which he loaned me, but never asked for it to be returned the round windows were cut. At this stage I really had no choice but to cut and fit the “upstand” than runs all round the hull (except right at the front end). Actually I used 1/64” ply as it was about the same thickness as the hull plating, and as far as my worries were concerned…well, they were totally unfounded as I’d forgotten that this strip was actually part of the sheer strake plating, and so had to be cut and laid complete with the same plate overlaps as those in the hull. These short lengths were 3/8ths “ deep which gave me the aimed for slight upwards projection of the sheer plating. Now to plate the superstructure bulkheads. This plating (in real life) is much thinner than the hull plating. So I used thin “lithoplate” with rivet markings embossed into each plate. In fact, the only bit of each plate that would show a rivet line was the rearward edge as the bottom part was covered by the (false) top of the sheer strake, and the top would be hidden by a half-round “fashion” bar. These were stuck on with my favourite double sided tape. These were stuck on over 25 years ago and show no signs whatsoever of peeling off, which proves those who tut-tutted at my use of this stuff to be totally wrong.
    I’ll leave my thoughts on plating for next time.

[Bryan Young]

The first diagram shows a few things I may have explained rather badly.
1.   The “upstand” being part of the sheer strake.
2.   The angle bracket/bar attaching the sheer strake to a steel deck plate (stringer) which I never bother with on a model.
3.   The “gutter” between the wood margin plank and the sheerstrake.
Next is the different types/styles of shell plating. The most common is the “In and Out” sort. I guess it has the advantage of being the cheapest. The last one (Flush plating) was more often reserved for the steam yachts of very rich people….but I’m pretty sure that “Warrior” also seems to have it, together with flush riveting that makes her hull look like a welded one, but isn’t.
     Trying to keep this simple isn’t easy to explain!
It’s easy to visualise one row of plates being put on top of another row (outer and inner), but although that may be OK for thick steel plates it certainly isn’t for plating on a model. The strake of “outer” plating will have to be backed up by a false layer laid between 2 “inner” strakes or else the “outer” strakes won’t appear to be flat. Make sense? Thought not. But that’s the best I can think of.
The next important thing to realise is that all the overlaps at the plate ends face aft….so all plate runs have to be laid from aft, and overlapped by the next plate at the forward end. This plating lark (in modelling terms) is pretty daunting at first, but if it’s all marked off correctly on the “plug” hull it really doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. Honestly. Give it a go, and you could be pleasantly surprised. No need to think that this is suitable only when making GRP hull. The same idea can be used to plate a wooden hull. But you’d probably have to use litho plate instead of card.

[BarryM]

Hello Bryan,
 
Reading of your struggles to extricate a plug from a mould brought a painful memory to me.
 
I have plenty of experience of using GRP - it was standard kit for repairing cracked pipelines whether deck steam pipes or salt water cooling. Some ships seemed to be stuck together with it and a lack of 'Thistlebond' and glass mat or tape was a serious matter. However, like you, this stuff called gelcoat and the making of plugs and moulds was something new. Thus, I read everything I could find on the matter.
 
Extricating the hull from a split mould required a number of wooden wedges and one half came off with only moderate force and a couple of kettles of boiling water. The other half was a different matter and it was only after several gallons of boiling water, an increasing number of wedges and an escalating (and desperate) application of brute force that it suddenly gave. In doing so the rough sawn end of one of the edges lacerated my right forearm producing an abstract design in blood over the back garden slabs.
 
Why is that wives lose all sympathy for their spouse once the honeymoon is past?
 
Cheers,
 
Barry

[gondolier88]

Your diagram of the different methods of shell plating has pointed out an interesting little aside, when the original SY Gondola was built, in 1859, her hull was constructed using flush rivetted 'Low Moor' wrought iron, 3/16" thick. The plates were arranged in the 'in and out' method in the diagram, though on her original builders ships spec' sheet she is described as being 'carvel built'.

This of course was throwback to the (then not so long back) wooden ship construction methods and lead to the invention of the 'shell expansion'drawings that you have mentioned earlier.

I often wonder why the description of 'carvel built' for describing an iron or steel hull disappeared- was it the still extant wooden shipbuilders lobbying them to call for new construction techniques to be named as such, or was it, in my mind the more likely reason- shipbuilders who had previously built in wood and were in the transition of changing to iron construction who wanted to boast that they were doing as such and addopted new descriptions to tell their clients of the fact.

SY Gondola was built in Liverpool by Mssrs. Jones and Quiggins for those interested.

Apologies for the interruption Bryan, please carry on with these insights into every modeller's plights, interesting and comforting at the same time.

Greg

[Bryan Young]

Hello Bryan,
 
Reading of your struggles to extricate a plug from a mould brought a painful memory to me.
 
I have plenty of experience of using GRP - it was standard kit for repairing cracked pipelines whether deck steam pipes or salt water cooling. Some ships seemed to be stuck together with it and a lack of 'Thistlebond' and glass mat or tape was a serious matter. However, like you, this stuff called gelcoat and the making of plugs and moulds was something new. Thus, I read everything I could find on the matter.
 
Extricating the hull from a split mould required a number of wooden wedges and one half came off with only moderate force and a couple of kettles of boiling water. The other half was a different matter and it was only after several gallons of boiling water, an increasing number of wedges and an escalating (and desperate) application of brute force that it suddenly gave. In doing so the rough sawn end of one of the edges lacerated my right forearm producing an abstract design in blood over the back garden slabs.
 
Why is that wives lose all sympathy for their spouse once the honeymoon is past?
 
Cheers,
 
Barry

Thanks Barry. Nice to know I wasn't the only one spitting into the wind! Bryan.

[Bryan Young]

Your diagram of the different methods of shell plating has pointed out an interesting little aside, when the original SY Gondola was built, in 1859, her hull was constructed using flush rivetted 'Low Moor' wrought iron, 3/16" thick. The plates were arranged in the 'in and out' method in the diagram, though on her original builders ships spec' sheet she is described as being 'carvel built'.

This of course was throwback to the (then not so long back) wooden ship construction methods and lead to the invention of the 'shell expansion'drawings that you have mentioned earlier.

I often wonder why the description of 'carvel built' for describing an iron or steel hull disappeared- was it the still extant wooden shipbuilders lobbying them to call for new construction techniques to be named as such, or was it, in my mind the more likely reason- shipbuilders who had previously built in wood and were in the transition of changing to iron construction who wanted to boast that they were doing as such and addopted new descriptions to tell their clients of the fact.

SY Gondola was built in Liverpool by Mssrs. Jones and Quiggins for those interested.

Apologies for the interruption Bryan, please carry on with these insights into every modeller's plights, interesting and comforting at the same time.

Greg

Interesting thoughts Greg. You may well be right. Feel free to interupt any time you like! All in a "good cause" you know. Bryan.

[BarryM]

Bryan,

The failure of my hull to release was all the more galling (not to mention gouging) in that I had applied two spray coats of polish plus a layer of PVA to the plug.

Barry M

[Bryan Young]

It seems only right that I should keep reminding “newcomers” (and some more experienced builders a), Don’t let enthusiasm let you “get ahead of yourself”,b) but always try to at least think a few steps ahead of what you’re doing at the time. So often in the past (and, alas, now and again in the present) I’ve done something or other that makes the next step frustratingly difficult. This is seriously annoying. No hard and fast examples to illustrate the point, but I again go back to the “Law of Unintended Consequences”. With this in mind I’ve sort of trained myself to automatically think of the “downside” of any “serious” action/fitting. Doing this can save you an awful lot of grief and despondency.
Actually, I do have example. I should have painted the hull (at least the white bit) before I laid the planking. I should also have painted all the ship side “guttering” before planking. That last one would have obviated having to scrape odd slips of the paint brush off the planking. And I hated having to mask off all that decking!
    Before painting the thing I carefully cut the 1/8th ply sheet that was the boatdeck base. Really just to hold the superstructure sides vertical while the epoxy sticking the sides down hardened off. The ply not stuck down yet, just resting on bearers. I used Humbol Matt white. I can’t remember now if Humbrol had aerosols back then or not, I think they must have. But 2 or 3 lightly sprayed coats gave a nice finish. Followed by at least one, but probably 2 light sprays of “satin” lacquer. I find that using the satin paint by itself is a bit on the glossy side, but the satin lacquer over the matt paint just gives the matt white that little “lift”…and toughens up the rather soft finish matt paint tends to have.
   But now it was time to make and fit the portholes. A bit of thought was needed here, which called for some of my thinking companions to be cracked open.
    Naturally enough I was going to use brass tubing. There was over 100 of these things to make. And having both an inner and outer part, that was over 200 bits of tube to cut. This sounded as if it was going to be a bit boring. Ideally, I wanted the inner tube to be slightly thicker than the outer one. The inner one eventually to be the more visible bit that holds the glass, and the outer one being the thin rim that projects slightly from the ships side. Eventually I did run down tubing that suited me. The expense! So I bought 3 tubes of each size, nicely slide fitting to each other. Just as well that I bought more than I was going to need as too many mistakes were made…all because of my ignorance of lathe work. Although I’d been practicing on the lathe and big-headedly considered myself “reasonably competent”. My head was rapidly brought back to size.
      Cutting ¼” slices of ¼” tube would be reasonably straight forward. Not so until a rapidly realised that a lightly “push fit” bit of dowel or something was needed to be held in the tailstock to prevent the cut off bits either flying off and never to be found again, or getting all chewed up during the final cut. I’m not a natural born engineer. But I can learn! The cutting tool I used was a sharply pointed thing which I think was intended for cutting threads. I’ve still never cut a thread in my life. At least not on a lathe. This tool was ideal for what I wanted to do. The tool being set up to give a chamfered end to the cut off piece, and leaving the next piece with a flat face. The chamfer had a purpose. It made the eventual fitting into its designated hole easier.
   The smaller but thicker tube was cut into 3/16” bits. Leaving me with 1/16” recess when one piece was fitted into t’other. Next another bit of wasted expenditure. I bought a tin of “Bondaglass” at extortionate cost. This is the stuff that is used for embedding things like bits of exploded clocks and so on. But as this was my first real attempt at making ports look even vaguely realistic, and not knowing what else I could use…….
By this time I’d become a little acquainted with “Perspex”. Probably from using a lot of it when making sidescreen windows for my “Noddy” car.  Using an offcut of this (knowing that the resin wouldn’t stick to it very well), The 2 parts of the “ports” were carefully arranged and using a toothpick I (messily) dripped this clear resin into the waiting mouths of the ports, filling them only to the level of the top of the inner tube. Leave to set and wait. And wait. With the aid of a few tins of modellers comfort and a bit of time spent painting the deck guttering (dark green), the resin finally set really hard. But there was all sorts of resin seepage from the bottom of the little tubes. Nothing for it but to mix up some more resin and drip-feed back to the required level. More waiting. Eventually I could remove my new ports from the Perspex sheet. That in itself was easy enough, but the resin that had “seeped out from under” came along for the ride. Fortunately I found that it chipped off quite smoothly with a bit of knife help.
      By now I’d used perhaps 5% of the tin of Bondaglass. I hadn’t realised that this stuff has a very short shelf life after being opened. A great product, but horrendously expensive when 95% of the outlay goes into the always full “cock-ups” bin.
I’ve since learned that “Devcon” epoxy is better for this job. Mainly because it lasts in its tubes longer, but also it’s the only epoxy I’ve come across that sets beautifully clear and not sort of yellowish like others.
      With the chamfered bottom edge, just pushing the ports into place wasn’t all that difficult. A little bonus was that the hull paint had slightly reduced the size of the drilled holes, so the ports fitted more snugly than I’d hoped. So just pushed them into place with the flat of a steel rule so about a millimetre was left standing proud of the hull and job done. Except for turning the whole thing upside down and dripping some superglue onto the inside joins. Back the right way up, I could now (carefully) paint the projecting bits white, leaving the inner part as bare brass.
That took longer than I thought both to do and to write!
All too serious for a wet and miserable Sunday afternoon.

[Bryan Young]

Where 2 bulkheads join at 90 degrees it’s more common than not that the corners are curved, with the curved plate laid over the top of the flat ones. The easiest method of making these corners that I could come up with was as shown in the sketch. In fact you don’t have to be absolutely accurate when cutting/filing out the notches in the dowel, as long as the cut away bit is deep enough to accept the thickness of the bulkhead material, but as with all things the more accurate the better. All the b’hds on this model are of 1/16” ply. The only reason I did this was to give a smooth finish to the curved plate. It also strengthened the corner areas, and looks better than “non-curved” corners…although not all ships do it this way, just using 90 degree angle brackets (on the outside) appeared often enough.
      The reason for not gluing down the boatdeck is now apparent. The for’d end of the boatdeck overhangs the foredeck and is recessed in the centre part about 8ft, with 2 extensions to port and starboard. The bottom of these housings and the bulkhead were horizontal, but the tops had to fit the boat deck camber fairly neatly. Any gaps were hidden by the rather deep full width covering plate that would be fitted later.
       All bulkheads obviously have to be fastened down to the deck they sit on. On a riveted ship this is done with a reasonably substantial length of angle bracket. On a ship with wooden decks the horizontal part of the angle is hidden under the margin plank, so only the vertical part is visible…the margin plank being rebated to give a flat deck surface. Naturally enough, this isn’t required on a model, but the vertical part should be shown as it was more common than not (even nowadays on the better maintained and presented ships) to paint this a different colour to the main bulkhead. Hence the visible grey strip at the bottom of the bulkheads. I use a pre-painted strip of a suitable thickness plasticard. Prepainting the strip means the top edge can also be painted neatly. Nowadays I use superglue for this sort of job, but when I first built “Norseman” superglue wasn’t all that reliable or long lived, so I used the faithful “Bostik”.
      The after b’hd was easy enough as its basically just a flat plate with a couple of doors and ports. But there’s an additional plate to be fitted that is seldom seen on a model. And it’s quite a large one. The triangular (about 2ft per side) stiffening plate that’s fitted horizontally at the 4 outboard corners of the lowest superstructure deck.
      Whoever said that pictures are worth 1000 words deserves a sainthood.
The 2 sketches should be self explanatory, but the 3 dimensional one has a lot of useful info in it, especially the way plates overlap.
      The 2 photos are purely to show the recessed for’d part of the superstructure and the curved corners. None of the rest in the photos is “fixed” and should be ignored.     

[Bryan Young]

oops, forgot my little mood lightener!

[Bryan Young]

Continuing with “superstructure” building, there are 2 housings on the afterdeck. The forward part of the larger structure is the entrance to the officers dining saloon cum lounge (very “naval” being combined, but they call the space the “wardroom”), and the smaller one with the curved bulkhead houses the steering gear. Again, leave sections of the deck unplanked so the housings can be just slotted in. The steering gear house I left  permanently  removable  as it conceals the gizmo I fitted to fasten down the back end of the cut hull. Not really a “gizmo” as it’s just a bit of threaded rod running into  captive nut with a Lego wheel on the top as a handle.
     I mentioned earlier that I use a heck of a lot of ¼” square ramin. In the case of deck houses lengths of it glued round the bottom part gives a nice thick base for it to sit on, while round the top edges of the b’hds it supplies a landing for the deckhead above. Useful stuff. As always it was dry-assembled using 1’16” ply for the flat b’hds, but 1/32” ply for the curved after end. Then the holes for the ports and doors cut before cladding with litho plate. Ports I’ve done. Wooden doors are another thing.
When I first built this model, model shops didn’t carry much in the way of different sizes of dark hardwood. That’s changed now, but another source of supply are the Dolls House outlets. One thing to remember here is that timber with a visible grain should be avoided. A visible grain on a door suitable for a model just looks daft.
     As far as I’m concerned there are only 3 types of exterior wooden doors you’re likely to find on a ship. A plain planked door (with or without a port or ventilator panel), a panelled door without a window, and a panelled door with a window. But all types have a few things in common. As opposed to steel exterior doors, wooden doors in my experience can be found either inward or outward opening. open inwards. So a wooden door also has a wooden door frame. Steel ones fitting on the outside don’t need a frame as such unless they are the watertight sort that have a rubber filled channel to fit into.
     All exterior doors that are at one time or another likely to get dollops of sea water thrown at them also have a “storm-step”….just high enough to give the unwary a painful whack on the shin bone. Most older ships also had a sort of “rain-dripper” fitted above them Wood or steel, no matter. On “fancy” ships such as these old cable-ships, yachts etc; the top of the storm-step would well have a brass footplate attached.
The attached photo shows all the above except the plain planked one…plus one of the “stable-door” type that I’d forgotten about. Making doors like these isn’t too difficult. Even easier if the door is to be shown closed. Try not to use superglue as it bleeds into the wood and causes blemishes…impossible to remove and very unsightly.
     For a “shut” panelled door you can use any thickness of (thin) ply you like as a backing piece. I tend to use 1/32 as it’s easiest to cut. A layer of thin veneer stuck to the backing and finely rubbed down, then thin strips of previously rubbed down then stuck to the first piece. Job done. Don’t overvarnish..looks unsightly. If the door frames (that stand slightly proud of the bulkhead) are made thin (narrow) enough then the door can just slot into place, otherwise it may be easier to have cut the thin backing ply slightly oversize so the bit that overhangs the veneer can be glued to the inside of the bulkhead. Similar result, but a slightly more recessed door. For “open” doors, don’t use the thin ply, but either 2 pieces of veneer or one thicker bit.
    Doors with windows can  be (will be!) much more time consuming and “fiddly” (this also applies to windows in the wheelhouse etc.).
This is only “my way”, so is not gospel!
For a start I’ve never found the need to make a door with a window that I’m going to leave “open”. What’s the point when there’s a window? Instead of using thin ply as a “base”, I use stiffish clear acetate. The real tricky bit comes when you try to glue on the widow frames. Some of the glues that dry clear are OK (like the stuff aero modellers use on aircraft canopies…but it still takes  lot of care). Visible hinges are simply short lengths of a suitable bit of brass wire.
     Going back to the steering gear house, once all is lined up (bare ply at this stage except for the rounded corner bits) it can all be glued together. Then it can be plated with litho with another layer of litho laid over if there are to be plate overlaps. May I remind you that I use double sided tape to stick the litho (or plasticard for that matter) to the ply b’hds. Cutting a clean edge into the litho or whatever you use is easiest when the base material has already been cut out. For the ports, a small hole followed by a bit of judicious knife work then trimmed up with a small half-round file allows the pre made brass port to be just shoved into position. Same for the doors, except you still need to fit the door frames, brass step and so on.
   The plating will always project a little (maybe only a couple of inches) above the enclosing “roof” of the deckhouse, but try to show it. Makes it all look so much nicer.

[Bryan Young]

I could have sworn I posted this yesterday!. Basically referring to the steering gear house.

[Bryan Young]

Just a few notes to finish off steel deckhouses.
Exterior doors (wood or steel) are hinged on their forward edges, athwartships doors open towards the nearest side of the ship. (all to do with the expected direction of the wind). Don’t forget to fit handrails around just about all deckhouses and other exterior bulkheads. Make or buy small “eye-bolts” for attaching the rails. Actually, in real life these rails can be genuine life savers. It’s amazing how much momentum a human body can generate when in an uncontrolled slide across a wet deck.
      Another view of a completed deckhouse. A small lathe is invaluable for turning up such things as the 4 vents on the roof. Unless the use of brass is required for appearances sake I do most of my turning out of aluminium. B&Q do round bar up to (I think) 6mm or so.
      I’m afraid the binnacle and aft steering compass are brass commercial fittings…I’m not averse to using things that are suitable!
     As is usual with spare propellers, they can generally only be lifted by a dockyard crane. Understandable when you consider that removing and fitting a propeller at sea would be a bit beyond the capabilities of the ships staff. That particular prop had a bit of a history in real life. We once did a sort of refit in Buenos Aires, and when the ship was docked down one of the blades on one of the 2 fitted props was found to be bent…hence the vibration we’d noticed….me in particular as my cabin was right above the blessed thing. Seems a bit odd that a twin screw ship would only have one spare prop, but being a steam reciprocating ship I suppose that we could run one engine in reverse if necessary. Could be fun when using the telegraphs! But we were lucky, so that wasn’t required. Unfortunately it was only then that we found out that the original spare had, sometime in the dim distant past, been stolen and had been replaced with a cheap concrete one that wouldn’t fit anyway. So an only partially successful attempt at straightening the blade was done.
     The second photo shows my patented gizmo for fastening the 2 halves of the hull together. The odd deck fittings will have to wait for awhile.
     Another thing I forgot to mention is that many older ships (before air-conditioning) had either jalousie or screen doors fitted behind the main outer doors. (In fact, I seem to recall that even the LSLs had them….). Without any stiffening these in model form would be too flimsy and “floppy”, so my “base” for these was a bit of acetate the size of the door with a bit of fine mesh nylon netting stuck to it (around the very edges), and the timber framing stuck over that. Did the job. So I could leave the main door open showing the screen door inside, (inwards opening).
     On a ship with wooden decks you will usually find some sort of deck protector where entering and departing feet would eventually “erode” the deck planking. Small section timber strips stuck to the deck do a good job of simulating these.
     Making the rectangular brass window frames was (I found) a mentally painful process. But I only had 9 of them to make for this end of the ship. And as all of them are more or less hidden away under the overhanging aft boat deck I could afford a few errors. Using a square section brass strip would have made life easier, but would have looked really odd, so I had to persevere with rectangular section. Even though this was over 30 years ago I still remember getting seriously annoyed trying bend this brass in a direction it just didn’t want to go in. I recall lots of hammering, lots of filing and gentle “tweaking”. To be honest, I still don’t know how to make such things apart from going down the photo-etching route. Or just buy them if of the correct scale.
       The 3rd photo shows this larger housing under construction so many years ago. As this house had a cambered boat deck above it the ends of the house had to act as a camber “former” so when the 1/16” ply was stuck down it assumed the correct curvature. The 4th and 5th photos show how it looks today after a certain amount of repair, rebuilding and refurbishment. Due to some accidental and fortuitous pre-planning (!) this entire section fitted so snugly into its designated hole that it never needed gluing into place. In fact, much of the entire model is sort of “removable, but there are some awkward bits that regrettably aren’t.
      I’ve taken too long over this part of the ship, so I suppose the next lot will be about the fittings and fixtures on the main boat deck.

[Bryan Young]

Gosh. There’s so much stuff and “clutter” on any boat deck that its difficult to know where to begin.
Leaving aside the bridge structure and the boats/davits what are we left with? I guess starting with the deck itself is a good start. The flat “base” deck is easy enough (same as the main deck). With one rider. On ships with a central structure as this one does the boatdeck will probably sag in the middle…not “sag” exactly, but will follow the sheer-line and be higher at the ends than it is in the middle. So the snug fitting base deck will probably have to cut and fitted with the main grain of the ply running from port to starboard making the “bending” easier. Marking out is easier this time as (in this case only) there are only 2 real “through-deck openings. This next bit shows the extent of my ignorance “back then”. “Conventional wisdom” seemed to dictate that the R/C aerial had to be rigged in a more or less vertical fashion. What a lot of poppycock. Unless you’re building a tin-plate hull, the aerial is just as effective being run around the inside of the hull above the waterline. But more on that much later.
Lordy,lordy….the wasted hours I spent trying to solve the problem of electrically connecting both halves of a horizontally cut ship.
     Totally over-engineering the whole thing, I decided that the aerial would have to be the wire mainmast forestay with a jackplug on the end that would plug into its socket raised high enough to sit just inside a removable engine room skylight…alongside the various “on and off” main switches. What a waste of time all that fretting was. But you live and learn.
     The only other thing that needed some prior thought before setting the base deck down was how to fasten the funnel to its place on the fiddley top. The obvious answer was to use a captive nut and arrange a length of studding through the yet to be made funnel. When I mention “captive nuts” I’m not referring to a normal nut (nothing personal) but one of those things with 4 twisted spikes and a central threaded bit that is hammered into a drilled hole. Very effective if to drill the hole in the right place. Dead easy if you have a vertical funnel. The “Norseman” had a steeply raked and tall funnel. So it was a non starter to drill and fit the nut in the centre of where the funnel should sit. With the rake of the funnel, and to get a vertical line downwards the nut had to be very close to the rear of where the funnel would sit. OK. Got that sorted, drilled and hammered in. Now epoxy the base down. The 5 minute stuff sufficed here.
Now make more of those nasty to make camber formers. Same radius as for the main deck of course. Marked and fitted to avoid interfering with other, future, fittings. So far so good. But with this “false” deck I quickly realised that as it had a double curvature (camber and sheer) it couldn’t be laid in one piece. So more of those camber bearers had to be cut and used as “doublers” to give a reasonable gluing area to the short lengths of ply I going to have to use. A bit time consuming, but worth it.
   Much more “marking out” now had to be done. The bases for the boat davits, the “staghorn” cleats for the boat falls, ventilators for the cabins below and everything else that needed margin planks in the deck planking. But now that I had my bandsaw cutting the planks became a doddle. I began (in my ignorance) to just cut the planks individually from one thickness of the Obechi sheet….but rapidly found that cutting the planks out of 4 thicknesses together made for both a quicker and better job.
    Laying the planks became much more pleasurable with being so much easier to cut them….and so much faster!
    The fiddley-top was a simple open topped box affair. But as it was to have all sorts of gubbins attached to it ¼” ramin was again used as bearers…only this time being lowered by 1/16” to allow for the ply “deck” thickness. Either litho or plasticard was used as plating (I think plasticard this time as the fiddley structure is only about 1” high). This “structure” could be immediately stuck into place as it didn’t appear to impinge on anything else.
Just to round off this section before I move on to the fiddley top (or funnel deck, if you wish to call it that) the only bits that needed to be made and fitted (and forgotten about) were the staghorn (or crucifix) bitts for controlling the boat inhaul/downhaul ropes and the cabin ventilators. The “screw-down” vents were common, and the same as the ones above the steering gear. The bitts are nowadays a bit (no pun intended) of an anachronism. But easily made. Thin dowel, drilled through and 2 cross pieces with a little round indent to make a snug fit wired to the vertical part. One of my most useful tools is a punch originally meant for cutting holes in leather. It’s got a wheel on the top with multiple tube things sticking out. Turn the wheel and punch, simple. Except I seldom need the hole it makes…it’s the little discs that are more generally the wastage. If you see one on a stall somewhere, then grab it. Gold dust for a modeller. Cut some little discs out of plasticard, glue to the 3 exposed ends of the dowel, fit a square baseplate and attach to deck. Not much more than a 10 minute job (each).
But what fits on the funnel deck (apart from the funnel) is worthy of a chapter of its own.
The 1st photo was taken out of a back bedroom window at 5pm this afternoon. Yeuch.
Hence all the time writing this screed.

[Bryan Young]

The bits’n’pieces on the funnel deck:
First of all the deck had to be stuck down. That’s the easy bit. This was a steel plated deck. Longitudinaly there would 3 strakes of plating. As for the length of each plate it doesen’t really matter as long as the plate overlaps don’t coincide with the placement of anything fitted to the deck. The outer strakes, starting from the aft end as the overlaps are still at the aft end of each plate, so only one line of rivet markings need doing. The centre strake will have to be “doubled” to avoid “humps”. All stuck down with the double sided tape. And then painted. When I came to the refurbishment some degradation of the litho plate was evident. This was no bad thing really as this is an old ship and that area of decking does tend to look more uncared for than other more visible parts. So a quick wire brushing  cleaned off the worst of the old (25 yrs or so) paint. Re-painted, the deck looked less than pristine…just what I wanted.
     Being the funnel deck I thought I’d better make the funnel next. And discovered a rather serious mistake. All my previous thought about a way to fasten the funnel down was totally wrong. I forgot the 5Ps principle. I’d fitted the captive nut to the base deck of the boatdeck instead of the base of the maindeck. Rats. Now I couldn’t get at it. More thought. The only answer was to re-drill, this time a ¼” dia vertical hole through all 3 decks at the centre of the funnel position. The funnel itself was to be made from a length of 2” dia “plastic” drainpipe. 2” being as near as makes no difference to the scale size of the funnel. Cutting the base of the funnel to the required angle of rake was another simple job with the bandsaw. I’d been thinking of cutting the wooden “plug” that would fit inside the bottom of the funnel with a suitably sized “tank-cutter”…until I realised that the bottom of the funnel was no longer round, but sort of elliptical. Using a bit of scrap ½” ply it was easy enough to draw around the funnel base to see what shape the plug would have to be. Finding the centre of this weird shape was made easy enough by just drawing a rectangle around it and connecting the corners. Not very mathematical, but good enough. Bandsaw time again. Cutting the ellipse out a bit undersize was easy enough, but of course with the rake of the funnel this square sided “plug” wouldn’t fit. The power file made short work of that problem. Drill a ¼” hole through the middle and epoxy the plug into place. This particular funnel was to be 8” high. 32ft seems tall for a funnel, but in 1923 they were all pretty tall, although the majority were vertical things. The angle of the top of the funnel is a bit of a moveable feast. Most (like this one) were made at right angles to the funnel length, but some were made with the top horizontal (parallel to the base) which to my eyes always looked a bit “iffy”. One of those little tubular sanding attachments made fairly quick work of thinning down the top rim of the funnel to an almost knife edge (otherwise the funnel would look far too “thick”).
    Even on a “simple” funnel such as this one, it’s surprising how much is attached to the basic structure. And it all takes time. But first I had to get the bolt that would fasten the funnel down into place. I don’t know what these things are called, but they have a domed top with a square section immediately below, so that when the bolt is tightly fastened up the square section digs into the wood and locks it into place. Just dropping the bolt down the funnel hoping it would land in its hole seemed a rather pointless notion. A length of small dia dowel “Bostiked” to the head of the bolt solved that one. A dollop of 24hr epoxy (didn’t dare use the 5 minute stuff in case it set before I had it locked in place) around the square bit of the bolt and into its locating hole followed by running up a nut and washer to heave the bolt into place did that job.
     While the epoxy was setting I decided to have a go at the “top-hat” thing on top of the funnel. I found this extraordinarily difficult to make. Never ever had the inclination to actually look inside a funnel, I suspected that a real funnel that was fitted with a “top-hat” was actually a double funnel with the diameter of the projecting bit of the “hat” being the diameter of the bit that actually got rid of the smoke and soot from the boilers. The outer (visible) bit being both cosmetic and somewhere handy to attach all the other bits. So I had to look for a short length of 1.5” dia tube. Preferably “plastic”. I hope the drawing makes “things” a bit clearer. The “bell-end” of the steam pipe is the cut off end of a plastic horn…seemed about right…and stuck into the (aluminium) steam pipe.
      Some other “points” about the funnel. One is the fact that these things were riveted together (more plating), and the making of the “top-hat”.
The plating is more or less random…but regular. Thin plasticard arranged in a regular pattern around the funnel  (no need for overlaps) and simply attached with the double sided tape will last forever.
       All funnels will have some sort of banding running around the top and some distance down. The top band is also used for the “gantlines”. Gantlines? Well, all funnels have to be cleaned or painted now and again. Which means that men have to get up there. The gantline is generally no larger than a signal halyard and is left permanently rigged. When access to the top of the funnel is required a heavier line is attached to the gantline and then is used by the people going up there. If the gantline breaks or is not re-rigged, leaving an empty block then it’s the devils own job to get it re-rigged.
      The lower band would be used as a good place to anchor the eye bolts that the funnel stays are connected to. Other bands of smaller section were often used to show off the company funnel colours.
       The “top-hat”. In my ignorance I thought that making the thing out of plasticard would be the “right way” to do it. Re-learning the geometry of a truncated cone wasn’t easy…or to be honest, very successful. I would make a much better job of it now by  simply turning it up out of whatever material I had to hand out of the solid. Really, I mean who’s going to inspect the underside of a cowl! Live and learn!
        With the “new and improved” method of fastening down the funnel, getting it lined up and “straight” was really just an eyeball job. Just keep on turning the funnel until it looks about right, check for perpendicularity and nip up the fastening nut. Job done.
    I hope I haven’t rabbitted on too long about the funnel, but as it’s such an important visual feature on any ship I thought I should spend a bit of time on it. Again, just the way I did it.

[Bryan Young]

Leaving the cowl ventilators to one side for a while, what’s left.
Engine room skylight, water tanks, boiler room vent/gratings, wooden galley skylight and the ash-hoist. Ah, the ash-hoist. Never having worked on a coal fired ship before, this bit of equipment was (and remains) a closed book to me. After rummaging through the way back issues of some ancient shipbuilding magazines held in the Newcastle central library I eventually came across an advert for “The Patent Cromptons Ash-hoist”. This was the name given on the ships drawings, but that was all. The picture in the advert did have sizes marked, so my little replica is accurate in that respect, and I knew it was steam powered, but how it actually works is still a closed book. As for the remaining fittings I think the photos are pretty self explanatory.

[Bryan Young]

Cowl ventilators. The bugbear of many modellers. There are plenty available from commercial manufacturers, some better than others, but they all suffer from one drawback. Size and scale. And only a few have an open intake (being able to look down a hollow shaft through the cowl bit). Even those that appear “suitable” have the cowl to shaft join as a hard edged “corner” when it should be nicely flared in. “Norseman” has a multitude of these things in various sizes ranging from the largest Engine Room ones with a cowl diameter of 1.5” and 4” high to the many small ones with a cowl of approx 0.5” and 1.5” tall. I’d read about some really skilled people making/beating out superb units out of sheet brass but that remains way beyond my skill level. Others have used a form of electro plating…again, way beyond me. At the other end of the scale I’ve seen half ping-pong balls stuck on a bit of dowel. Well within my capabilities, but not very satisfactory. I thought about GRP…I still wonder how effective that might be, but whatever form of moulding I’d have to use: some sort of plug/mould would have to be made for each size. Much exercising of brain. Even though I was still in the makee-learnee stages of model making I’d become aware of this black art called vacuum forming. I also knew (sometimes to my cost) that plasticard can get up to all sorts of unexpected tricks when heated beyond its comfort level. But the seed was sown. After all we all have a vacuum cleaner with a reasonable degree of “suck”. We also all have access to a grill when it’s not being used for the purposes the manufacturers intended. So. At least the thoughts were coming together. Next up was how to make the “plugs”. During the 1980s it seemed easy enough to find a shop that sold wooden balls in all sorts of sizes, but I haven’t seen them for sale anywhere recently. Anyway. A selection of balls was a starting point. Along with dowelling of various diameters. That was another arm and a leg, as I could only buy this stuff in 8ft lengths. Came in handy for other things though, so not wasted. I knew that eventually the balls would have to be cut in half, but also that the main trunk would have to be fitted first.
    The sheer smugness I felt at having the foresight to buy the mill/drill attachment for the little Unimat lathe! Made milling out a slot in which to fit the main shaft so easy. Epoxy the shaft into the slotted ball and fill the gaps with “bodge”, and also fared in the ball to the shaft. That could all be rubbed down later. To the bandsaw. Using the shaft as a handle and the fence as a guide cutting the ball in half was a 10second job. But my smug pleasure was quickly banished when I remembered that the top of a cowl vent leans forward from the vertical. Rats, again. So then I had to stick a bit of thin ply to the front of the cowl, but chocked out about 1/16” at the top, then fill the ensuing gap with a bit more bodge. And this is all called part of the learning process!
Once this was all rubbed down and looking like a proper but solid cowl ventilator for some reason or another I decided to paint it. Wrong. Don’t do it. Just take my word for that. Then the whole thing had to be sliced down the middle. No problem when using the trusty bandsaw. But again, now when the 2 halves were placed together, the cowl was no longer as round as it should be. By the thickness of the bandsaw cut. So 2 bits of 1/64” ply cut, glued, trimmed and rubbed down solved that one. By now I felt as if I was going backwards. But at the same time, sort of educational in a philosophical sense. And I still had to make the “machine” that would open the doors to greatness.
     Fat chance.
Once I’d worked out what I wanted to achieve, the actual construction was pretty easy. The box sides had to be fairly thick as they would have a dual purpose. So I used some 1” thick  stuff that I had lying around (as one does). My base measurement was the size of a standard sheet of plasticard. (Now that “standard” has been changed to a larger size I get more wastage). To “seal in” the plasticard I used strips of soft rubber draught excluder. Then I made up the “lid” from 1” ally angle (useful stuff for all sorts of jobs). The lid was then drilled (when in place) through and into the wood sides. Bits of studding and a few butterfly nuts did for clamping down purposes.
At this stage I realised that just laying my “plugs” on the floor of the box was no good. Whatever air was sucked out had to come from below the plugs. So the bit the plugs were laid on had to be as high up as possible, but definitely above the vacuum inlet. So a false “floor” had to be made. I just used a bit of hardboard and drilled hundreds of little holes in it so the air above could be sucked out. It would have worked better if the hardboard had been sealed around its edges as that’s where most of the air found its way out. But I also knew that this was a very crude way of doing things. But for all its faults and crudity it worked, and I eventually had my ventilators.
      Knowing what I know now, if I had the inclination, I’d make a much more efficient machine, but that was my introduction to another of modellings “black arts”.
      I hope I’ve made some sort of sense with this lot, and the photos will do a lot of the explaining for me

[BarryM]

Thanks Bryan.  I think you've just provided me with the solution for making some 4" high jobs. I think I've got a bit of pegboard waiting patiently to use as a false base.

Just one point, how did you get the plasticard heated before sucking the air out?

Barry M

[Bryan Young]

Just a short(ish) final bit about cowl vents. My last post ended with just the bare bones of no particular vent. But the larger ones are controlled from the engine room by means of a spindle and gears. They are shown in the “Norseman” pictures. But the larger version as fitted to the ferry “Northumbrian” perhaps shows this control/swivelling arrangement a bit better.
    For smaller vents that are remote controlled the “spare parts” gearing packages made for servos are pretty good. Cut out the middle bit and the outer geared rim is ideal for the job…plus the fact that the smaller ones can be used on top of the extended spindle.
    The ones shown as fitted to “Northumbrian” are short lengths of “tie-wrap”
Other, smaller vents have side handles for manual adjustment. The smaller ones turn over their whole length, whereas on the biggies only the part on and above the gearing turns.
     Remember to fit the rim around the cowl. Brass wire superglued in place is normally sufficient, but larger scales my need a strip of ½ round plastic strip.

[Bryan Young]

Thanks Bryan.  I think you've just provided me with the solution for making some 4" high jobs. I think I've got a bit of pegboard waiting patiently to use as a false base.

Just one point, how did you get the plasticard heated before sucking the air out?

Barry M

    Dear dear Barry. Either old age/other problems are becoming evident or your old eyes skipped a line or two.
I'll help you.
PUT IT UNDER THE OVEN GRILL thingy until the plasticard goes all floppy, turn on the vacuum and pull the whole shebang out. The plasticard will cool and harden off in a few seconds. I've found that 20 or 30 thou card works best without "tearing". Honestly, sometimes I despair at you clankies. Thought you knew all about heat and melting points and such. Made my day answering that! Regards. Bryan.

[Bryan Young]

Oops! Never a good deed goes unpunished!
I forgot to include the "Northumbrian" vents! Sorry.