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[Neil]

Apart from a few fittings that go on to the deck area, including the main Quad mast at the stern all of the fittings for the hull have been made and attached to the hull or put aside for when painting the orange flash to the sides of th boat.


I am leaving the mast till last as I need to aneel some brass rod to bend in to shape after threading and gluing some plasticard tube over the rod once it has cooled................


But a rather large model is on my bench that I do my silver soldering on..........so am going to have to find somewhere else to do the soldering.

[Neil]

After putting all of the fittings on to the hull that I could do before painting it tomorrow i decided to go into the workshop to find the rubber moulds for the outboard motors and picked up a couple of moulds............no, not them, and then I saw a box on the shelf that I hadn't opened in a while.

To my absolute amazement I found a load of fittings that will come in useful for fitting out the deck and seating consol, PLUS two ready made and painted outboard motors that must have been for a wreck of an A21 that I bought some time ago, and probably forgot about the box of treasure and made new parts for, including motors.

 Think it was for the last one I built and sold.

I then made a small plasticene mould for one triangular lifting bracket that I had so have pressed for 12 more to be cast in resin.






And finally I have found some polyester putty from a model shop that opend about 3 miles away last summer.

So use them as much as can.

 This putty I mixed and moulded to the fore end of the seeting unit and formed the rounded face to the controll consol.

[Neil]

And the last bit for tonight before i poor a beer for my troubles, i took out a set of mouldings for a delta anchor, cleanrd them up and glued them together using odourless ciano glue..............normal stuff plays havock on my synusses

[Neil]

WELL!. If i say so myself................they came out better than I had hoped........just need to clean the flash off now and sand them under a finger to a flat even base.

[Neil]

The final constuction job after all the little fiddly bits had been fabricated was the making of the quad legged rear mast formation and all the detailing on it.

And detail photographs of it and any part of the model are to be honest very hard to get, as its a hell of a long way to go down to Chatham, as in the past I have found the help getting photos of lifeboats from the museum virtually impossible to get hold of and sent, sadly.

Anyway I HAVE fabricated the mast from plastic tubing with a centre core of aneeled brass rod bent to shape as in the photos.............good enough for me and me needs and happiness.

So all things that can go on the model prior to paintinfg the bare hull are shown where they should go but will be taken off and painted individually once the hull has been given the treatment of Halfords rattle cans.

[minimariner]

                                    Neil Its all looking very good, what scale is this one ?


                                                  Bryan.

[Neil]

1;12 scale Bryan. only build my lifeboats in that scale.

[Neil]

Baring in mind that the hull of the rib had already been painted in black before I bought it, I reasoned that it had been painted in an automotive type rattle can from the surface finish!!!

WRONG!!!!,    and it was my fault for not checking on a small area first, for after leaving the     coat of paint for nearly 2.0 hours to set early this morning, I went back to give it a coat if filler primer only to find that the first coat of  that I had aplied over the original black had crazed in quite significant amounts!

So for the last hour or more i have been rubbing down with wet and dry, going from 400, 800 and finally 2000 grade to get a smooth area on the crazed area ans 2000 on the area not crazed, before giving the bottom of the hull a full coat of filler primer.

Problem is I'll probably have to do the same with the top half of the hull as well after the bottom half has cured, before carrying on any firther......
a bit of a bummer to be honest.

[Neil]

Well, after all of my hard work!!!.......a disaster!!

Any ideas guys before I get out the paint stripper, ie. the cellulose thinners and start wiping it all down to clear plastic, or is there a none tixic FOR  plasticard than smothering it all with paint stripper that wont knacker my hull.

WHY OH WHY  can people model and paint and know that the majority of modellers use rattle cans put on a primer paint such as the black that is not compattible with normal car based rattle effin cans................

TO SAY I am pee'd off is an under statement.

[Neil]

solution now being worked on.

[SteamboatPhil]

Super sympathy, been there but with worse language 

[Neil]

i let my wrath out at the bottom of the garden Phil, but there was an advantage to the cockup.

The black paint had hidden a multiple of building mistakes by someone, lord knows who, that had put the hull together, and the parts fitted where they touched only and so many holes in it so last night before going to bed I dowsed it in polli glue, and once set, I filled in all the gaps with Dolfin Glase filler this morning/lunch time.........

There was, in fact a mm wide gap at the point where the two halves of the sponson halves met at the bow...........probably the worst place to have a hole lol.

 Anyway it isn't as creeky or unstable or fragile now, and once the patch that I applied to the bow, I'll sand that smooth, and then start taking the scratches out with finer wet and dry paper.

[Neil]

I feel somewhat better this evening knowing that the grey that I have in very  sparce and light layers sprayed on today in between looking everywhere including retracing my journey yesterday to find my wallet without success has lightened my mood.

Not a bad covering of the rib, and at last inspection about 10 minutes ago, touch wood with crossed fingers on both hands it looks as though I have cracked it with the grey undercoat, and will inspect in an hour or so after MASH has finished hopefully to put my mind at ease for tonight.

Tomorrow its a trip to the Halfords store to buy some top coat grey, and a gloss white to colour the quad legged mast.

[Neil]

Now to answer from another forum, Hermans message about painting the whole boat orange, sorry this was not the intention when i painted the sponson sides orange, but it will be painted in the usual lifeboat colours of the class and age.

I have learned over the many years of building, that my painting skills leave much to be desired and complex lines such as a straight one are beyond my skillset unless it is totally masked up properly.

And so after a couple of boats I had a long think of how to get the orange flashes right on the boats!

I decided to paint the orange on to the top outer sides of port and starboard  of the sponsons after they had been painted in primer.

Then it was a matter of getting the right width of masking tape with low grab fixing glue. Job done as I came across FROGTAPE Lowtack, and this worked perfectly on the first and sucessive boats after.

Once the tape had been stuck to the sponsons you will note it doesnt go around bends and double curves to easily and so one has to work the little crimps in the tape with ones thumb nails to get it as smooth as possible.

Once this has been done, I made a little tool from plasticard to draw around to get the same rounded shape as all on each end of the flashes. Once drawn on the ends of the masking tape just a slight cut around the lines with a sharp craft knife and the flat ends become rounded ones after removing the waste.

And the final part of the proces is to overspray the masking tape to stop any creapage of the gray through those little crimps in the tape. The boat will now be given a light spray of orange to seal the edges befor spraying the hull with its finish gray colour.

Once all dry and hardenned the tape can be removed to  show the orange flashes.

[Neil]

The masking tape which was saving the orange sponson flashes have now cole off as the last of the gray was added a couple of hours ago, and I must say after all the troubles with cracking paint and exploding cans, lol, things finally went smoothly.

I am quite pleased with the end result, and with the deck and seeting consol plus the rear mast added, I am very happy.

Now I can paint the mirriad of fittings still to be fitted and then attach them all before giving her identity by numbering her on the orance flashes.

It is begining to grow on me as it fills a gap in my collection and is rather sweet in its own way.

Now I can stip buying them and hording away.

[Neil]

Finished all but one fitting for the boat and that was the wireless communicator plus the cradle for it to be held in......the wireing was made from looping a 0.5 mm brass wire around a 1.0mm wire to achieve the expandable coil  and then they were glued to the mouth piece and link up to the radio set fitted into the sheering consol, and glued with cyano!

All other fittings hopefully will be attached to the model tonight and tomorrow, when finally the boat will be given her classified  boat number.

[Neil]

bit of a disapointment tonight as I could have finished it by later tonight, as i only have the grab lines along the side of the sponsonms and the radio coms' had been fitted but when i came to get my viny lettering out i had whoefully low reserves of black 15mm Black stick on lettersl.
Have ordered some off ebay but wont be here until thursday at the earliest, so am not going to rush the last little bits only to wait for the final finishing bit............but I quite like the finish.

[Neil]

MY GRAND DAD, after my ordeal with the sea and surviving a drowning  thanks to the Fleetood RNLI  Mechanic in 1959, taught me the basics in  woodwork, on how to hold and use all sorts of saws, chissels, planes,   and other fine tools of his collection, as he was a pattern maker and  City and Guilds Master Cabinety maker and I never lost those skills, but  two things he said to me taught me a great deal and helped me move on  in both my carear as a high school Woodwork and tech drawing teacher and  a model maker......the first was............"if you can do better son,  go away and show us".........meaning, dont  denegrate other peoples  work, what ever you may think, and hopefully that has always stuck with  me, as your skills cal always be  bettered by others...........or simly  humbleness is always better.

And the second was, if you dont experiment, , you'll never get any better in your hobby............he was very forward thinking and he was right.


Today I took  that chance!       Some days ago I showed a little piece where you dont need to buy a pack  of moulding rubber for 20 quid when you only need to make something that  you can just press into a lump of plastisine your fitting that you need  a one off.........

Well today, I remembered my grand dads message  and words, as though he was next to me and almost willing me on to try  and gave me the impetus to try, as i had never tried it befor,e and that  was to try a split mould from plasticine.

I needed a simple small  propellor for the outboards on my RIB, as I could only find one.

And  so I made two round patties [like mcdonalds beaf burgers], but about an  inch thick each and once done, I pressed the main bult including the  blades into the bottom half, and then as a release agent I used some  Savlon cream [cuts and grases as I suffer plenty of those in my old age]  as i couldnt find any vasciline, and then put the top patty onto the  mould and stuck it all in to the fridge for about 3 hours to go hard.

 Once  very cold and hard I cut some locating grouves into the sides of the  full mould whilst still together to make sure everything lined up. I  took the two halves abart and poured some casting resin in to each half  after seperating the halves and removing the original propeller.

This  is a quick acting resin and poured into each half of the mould enough  to fill and slightly overflow making sure there was enough resin to fill  and within about  3 minutes the resin left in the mixing jug was going  rubbery, and so, making sure the guide cuts on the side lined up I  joined both top and bottom moulds, and left for about an hour to cure.

To my absolute  amazement,out popped a perfectly formed 2nd propellor.............GRAND DAD BOB, I solute you!

[Neil]

After cleaning and sanding up I'm happy how well the second prop has turned out.

[Neil]

And now fitted...........just waiting for lettering to arrive and then I can finish the model

[Martin (Admin)]

Looking Good Neil!
 
 Are those the outboards that come in the kit?

[Neil]

Yes they are Martin, but this one wasn't a kit,
it was just a hull i bought off someone.
all the fittings including the outboards were from old kits or bits i moulded over the number of years that i have been making multiple ones of these.

[Neil]

Just waiting for the numbers now to finish the boat

[Neil]

So WHAT  do you call a collection of Atlantic 21 lifeboats........ I DON'T KNOW...........   

but I'm not making any more...........3 are enough as I only have 2 hands, lol 


BUT I reckon an "Ocean of Lifeboats"     ..............will just about sum it up

[Neil]

It's a quick tidy up and make some space and then its on to repair small bits on this one for a  friend of mine.