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Author Topic: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane  (Read 109691 times)

Corposant

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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #200 on: November 24, 2011, 04:58:48 pm »

Following Ooyah/2's suggestion that I use a longer rudder arm and looking at Harald's extra pulleys, I selected a suitable piece of brass but before I started work on it, the chap in the drawing office raked out the steering geometry test bed. The servo end bears the scars of the aborted attempt to use a sail winch instead of a servo arm but the rudder end is still intact.

The first video shows the current arrangement. The effective length of the rudder arm is 25mm.



It achieves a comfortable 90 deg. rudder swing.

Extending the arm to 40mm extends the swing to 98 deg.



Obviously, when using just levers, the maximum achievable swing is 180 deg. but for this, the pulleys need to be in line with the rudder stem (and the arm gets locked in the extreme positions).



So, following Harald's thinking, the "pulleys" were moved right to the edge of the hull.





The 25mm arm achieved a swing of 113 deg. and the 40mm 123 deg. So, extending the rudder arm increases the swing by 8 - 10 deg. while moving the pulleys gives an increase of 23 - 25 deg.

There are one or two problems: Firstly, extending the arm requires additional chain travel (c. 24mm in each direction). The servo arm has sufficient adjustment to support a rudder arm extended to c. 30mm but there would be a loss of mechanical advantage.



Secondly, the pulleys could not realistically be moved that close to the edge of the hull.

When the chap in the drawing office presented his findings to his underling, it was decided to wait and see how the model performs on the water before making any changes.

Many thanks to George and Harald for their stimulating thoughts!

Mike
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #201 on: May 07, 2012, 07:33:30 pm »

It’s only 6 months since my last update - am I getting quicker?

I had decided that the steering wheel was finished (bar a coat of varnish) so it was back to the bilge pump. Although I had got the Halford’s non self-priming screen washer pump to work, it would need mounting in the bottom of the hull and I was not confident in the reliability of operation - so the whole exercise was put down to experience.

The trip to Warwick (very enjoyable) saw the purchase of a Hunter Systems self-priming jobbie plus sensor circuit. It was decided to mount it behind the rear bulkhead - what could be simpler? Anyone who’s  looked at my previous antics on this build won’t be surprised that things didn’t go smoothly!



The two mounting bolts were no problem but I needed to create four dimples to accommodate the screw heads protruding from the casing so that it would sit flush against the bulkhead. Tugboat Ken’s phrase “Like trying to paper the hall through the letterbox” kept springing to mind. Working blind, it was difficult/impossible to find appropriate tools, get them in the right place and manipulate them through the deckhouse aperture, with the result that I ended up with holes going right through  - so I could have started  from the outside in the first place!



 Any sensible person would have simply replaced the screws with countersunk ones.





Holding the inlet tube at the lowest point in the hull, together with the sensor, proved  fiddly and involved  paring my fingers apart with a scalpel, having superglued them together. The blood loss was minimal and the management’s comments were re-interpreted to be tenderly sympathetic.





Video - I’ve just noticed that Photobucket no longer puts  “film edges” on video clips.


While all this was going on, the chap in the drawing office was making a nuisance of himself saying, “Shouldn’t the steering wheel have brass rings?” I kept ignoring him and pressed on with mounting the battery pack (6v) for the pump and ran some resin into the port side to ensure any water found it’s way to the pump inlet.



 The main deck was finally glued in place.



In response to that nagging voice, I did an Internet survey of ship’s wheels and the vast majority had brass rings! So I gave in.

My first thought was to slice thin sections from brass tubing and polish them down to a reasonable thickness. Finding nothing suitable in stock, it seemed madness to buy in a length and only use a mm or two.

The next idea was to mount a piece of acrylic sheet on a mandrel, mount it in the lathe, turn it down to 25mm and stick shim material on with contact adhesive. It nearly worked but the resilience of the adhesive  meant that the shim was torn off when trying to cut the ring. The disc also twisted round on the mandrel as it was fixed on with a screw.





I thought cyano would be better and could still be dissolved off with acetone so I mounted an acrylic block in the lathe and turned it down to 25mm as before.





 After sticking on the shim and using a boring tool with the lathe in reverse, to give a slicing action, it still didn’t work. The ring peeled off prematurely, I think because the cyano was going off before I could press the shim firmly in place. I thought, “Oh bother!” - or something very similar. The management made several suggestions as to what else I could be doing with my life but the chap in the drawing office can be a right pain in the a**e when he gets a bee in his bonnet.





Ironically, contact adhesive worked if I left it for a couple of days to dry out thoroughly before working on it.

Every picture tells a story!


Rear view:


Front view:


Whatever next?

Mike
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Corposant

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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #202 on: May 17, 2012, 07:02:02 pm »

I thought I would add a kit assembly stage so that other beginners can learn from my mistakes.

After gluing the main deck, the next job was to pull in the hull sides. The manual says to do this after fitting the capping rails but I thought that would be asking for trouble.

I filed notches in the hull for the stay-bars and glued them into the deck. Then, after a final warming and tightening of the cloth strips, I glued them to the hull. Finally the excess was cut off.



Boat on its side. Pegs to add a bit of weight.




I have decided to leave fitting the hatch coaming for now as I am working on the platform for the RC components. There was no piece of timber of the right size for the stem piece, so I made one out of scrap.









The cutwaters needed a lot of gouging out  to make them fit on the hull.

For the capping rails, I made up a jig and used a 1.5mm cutter in the lathe.











There were two strips in the kit, each long enough for both hull sides. One was short-grained, so rejected on the grounds that it would not survive being bent. The other piece was wetted and formed round the management’s colander, using a hot-air gun. Not surprisingly, because of its rectangular cross-section, it needed a lot of weights to keep it flat.







The anchor davit was a different size from the plan and needed a deeper collar to raise it, so that the cleat did not foul the cutwater when turning.





Hang on a minute, something’s wrong here. I don’t appear to have made any mistakes! I’ll try to do better next time.  :-)

Mike
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tassie48

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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #203 on: May 18, 2012, 12:39:25 am »

sailed on a old Dredger 30 odd years ago with chain steering and large adjuster slides in the chain lines we had to grease and adjust the slides big bottle screws to look at to keep the right tension on the chain was hard work steering her even with a small eletric motor helping tassie48
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Corposant

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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #204 on: May 18, 2012, 10:57:33 am »

Tassie

I imagine the gear on your dredger was a bit more substantial than this!



The picture is of the VIC56 moored at Chatham dockyard. I imagine there's a bit of slack in the wheel!

I envy you your experience on board (including the hard work!) - I am a complete landlubber - I think my build makes this pretty obvious!

Mike
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #205 on: May 21, 2012, 10:24:47 am »

Was a real trick to keep her on course we had a massive quadrant down aft to the rudder stock under some nice timber TEAK gratting was a real pleasure to serve on her had a coal range for cooking had to keep her hot all the time for hot water British Polar two stroke diesel as well a real ship to sail on slow and a happy ship now gone to the knackers yard keep up the great build looks like a good model tassie48
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #206 on: May 21, 2012, 05:00:48 pm »

Thanks for the extra info. Tassie. I had the privilege of steering the VIC32 (as a passenger) about 15 years ago - a bit smaller than yours! These old vessels just ooze personality do they not. It's a shame that the VIC56 seems to be deteriorating a bit (probably short of money!). She must have had a grating across the stern at one time - the VIC32 has. I'm planning to make one out of teak for my Northlight - the white-metal one supplied with the kit could never look the part!

Mike
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #207 on: January 23, 2013, 07:40:39 pm »

Now, where were we? Eight months to report on - shouldn’t take too long! I remember debating ways of securing the end of the aerial vertically. In the end I decided on a hollow mast, so abandoned the wooden one and made another from acrylic tube.



The detachable top piece was a bit tricky.


Detail of the top (shows keying to prevent it twisting). End of aerial to be secured with piece of soft tubing.


The mast step  had already been mounted:


A support bock was glued beneath the deck:


To prevent the mast from twisting, it was keyed. A thin ply fillet was inserted:




And the mast slotted:


Complete:


At this stage, the bottlescrews were replaced with brass. Their gunwale plates were sleeved with stainless steel inserts and bolts made from 14 BA screws.


Then there was the boom to make heavy enough to fall reliably under its own weight but not to cause an embarrassing list when fully abeam. 7.5g was enough to ensure free fall in the mock up. A 10.5g weight was tried with the vessel in water and only produced a list of c. 3 deg. so this one was  chosen.

Useful selection of  ¼” rods:


Suspended needle used as pendulum to make measurements:


Shows deflection to port with 7.5g weight:




Now with 10.5g weight:




Boom mounted in the lathe:


Milled and drilled ¼”:


Weight epoxied in. (a small hole was drilled laterally at the bottom to let the air out when it was pushed in.)


Because the boom was going to be moving, a new gooseneck pivot was made and bearing surfaces sleeved with brass:



The above takes us to about July last year - next instalment coming soon!

Mike

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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #208 on: January 24, 2013, 08:06:01 pm »

I got to the point where I was about to fit the hatch coaming but then thought “better get the RC board sorted first” - more of that later!

Then I thought “better cut out the wash-ports first” - found the upper rubbing strake was too high compared with the deck. Asked the forum for advice - Tug Kenny said “then you do indeed have a problem.”

Then I thought “better check that the boom movements still work, now the mechanism is in the hull.”

Stage 1.    Threaded up the pulleys for lateral movement using some rough thread (on the basis that if it worked with that, it would be OK with decent thread). - Connected up servo to RX and tried it. Did it work? - Of course not! Thought “Oh bother” (or something very similar).

 After much head scratching (almost woke up the chap in the drawing office!) I discovered the reason was that the pulleys were not spinning freely enough (ironically because they were a bit too loose on the spindles and were being pulled out of alignment by the tensioning springs). Big problem! The spindles were brass rods soldered to plates epoxied  to the hull and now difficult to access under the deck.

The chap in the drawing office said the proper solution would be to use ball races - and the Internet revealed a source of very small reasonably priced ones (6mm diam. 2.5mm deep, bore 3mm). But how to make holes for a good press fit. Steamboat Phil was consulted at Warwick and came up with - “1/64th under.” The purchase of a 5/64th reamer (actually 0.05mm under) in combination with a tailor made anvil saw them pressed home in the lathe.

Backplate made to support pulley when in lathe chuck.


Milling out old bearing


Reamed out to 5.95mm.


Insertion tool mounted in tailstock chuck.


Bearing mounted on insertion tool


Ready to insert (pulley has been warmed).


Success!


After a very ham-fisted removal of the original spindles, they were replaced with3mm threaded ones. Fine pitch was chosen as the plates are only 2.5 mm thick.

Making new spindle:




Cutting slots in heads:


Slotted.


Cut to length ready for assembly.


Old spindle.


Cut off.


Tapped 3mm (0.35mm pitch)


 Result success!!

Stage two coming very shortly!

Mike

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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #209 on: January 25, 2013, 02:46:11 pm »

As promised!

Stage 2.    Threaded up the pulley designed to maintain gentle tension on the secondary (dummy) boom lifting line. The original piece of shirring elastic, from it’s time in the mock-up, was still attached but time had taken it’s toll and it was no longer up to the job. A replacement length was taken from the original reel which promptly lost it’s elasticity after a single raising and lowering of the boom.
I thought “Oh bother (or something very similar).

Time to wake up the chap in the drawing office again. At the prototype stage,  he had me making intricate weighted pulley systems, which didn’t work, before deciding a very weak spring was needed.
This had a twofold result:
                                        a.)  An abortive search for a supplier and
                                        b.)  Ian Boatmadman telling me it’s easy to make your own. (complete with a link to a website explaining how to do it).
At the time, I opted for the shirring elastic (as recommended and purchased by the Management), which worked. But not permanently!!

So… the answer had to be a spring (no more than 6mm diam. c. 50mm long, extending to c. 95mm with a spring rate of < 0.02 N/mm). Once again, the Internet failed to satisfy (a few near misses but the main obstacle = cost of buying just one or two).

Ever since Ian posted the link, the chap in the drawing office had been pressing me to have a go and having a few metres of 0.3mm stainless steel wire in stock didn’t help. The thing that put me off was not having the wherewithal to anneal the result but, this time round, a very helpful chap from a spring  manufacturer told me not to bother. I have since learned that annealing doesn’t affect  “springiness” but extends the elastic limit.

So, it was worth a try! As I was going to need over 200 turns, I decided to use the lathe. Winding the wire onto a wooden reel proved successful in controlling the feed tension and  the result wasn’t too bad for a first attempt!

Lathe set up for winding (0.3mm pitch)


Wire secured ready to start. (Mandrel supported in sliding fit sleeve mounted in tailstock chuck.)


Finished. (Sorry about poor focus!)


Result: The mandrel was 2.37mm diam. and the spring expanded to 3.6mm.


After a bit of a battle to cut it and form end loops:


Mounted in hull. (Boom fully lowered, so stretched to 93mm.)


Boom fully raised. (Spring relaxed.)


 So far, so good! It maintains tension while the boom is fully raised and allows it to fall easily under it’s own weight. The acid test will come with the passage of time, because it is under maximum tension most of the time - i.e. when the boom is at rest.

Video to end - showing all the mechanical bits working! Apologies for poor focus!


Now, back to the wash-ports!

Mike
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #210 on: April 05, 2013, 08:10:57 pm »

Hindsight is a wonderful source of wisdom! If I knew then what I know now… the wash port saga would be very different.

I knew they were going to be too high with respect to the deck.
I knew the upper rubbing strake was going to be in the way.
But: I went ahead anyway!

In fairness to myself, I did contemplate scraping/filing off the offending strake but, after much deliberation, decided against this - on the basis that it would be very difficult to disguise the removal i.e. to get a polished surface and add rivets (without counting them of course!). Another factor was that, after going to a lot of trouble

to pull the warped hull sides to a vertical plane, they have, to some extent, reverted to their warped state. I thought that removing the strake might make this worse.

So… herewith the outcome:

Stage1.    Gouge out hinge pin parts from the white metal cover castings and drill for 0.5mm replacements.


Stage 2.    Cut lengths of 0.5mm O.D. and 0.85mm O.D., 0.5mm I.D. SS tube to make hinges.



Stage 3.    Cut 2.5mm strips of 0.03mm brass shim for securing to hull.



Pieces of shim folded.


Single cover fully assembled.


Stage 4.    Check function with mock-up.


Video:



Stage 5.    Cut wash ports.

Stage 6.    Create 0.4mm slots for shim anchorage.




And finally! (Video)


The bottom inner edges of the covers will have to be chamfered as they sit on the rubbing strake. The hinges will not be secured in place (by glueing) until after painting.

It might be said that the result looks the part but I have a strong suspicion that experience on the water will result in the ports being sealed with pieces of clear acrylic sheet!

Mike

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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #211 on: May 21, 2013, 08:17:01 pm »

Having fitted the hatch coaming, the time had finally arrived to start painting! The weather, however, had other ideas. So… meanwhile, the r.c. tray needed sorting out.

It occurred to me that my previous diagram explaining the use of Action’s P44 units to operate the winch was a bit obscure:



So here is a better one:



The original connector:





proved a pain to disconnect so a rummage through the storage system (rather unkindly called junk by the Management) produced this:





The next pics show the relay:





And the complete winch circuitry:



The chap in the drawing office pointed out that, with the aerial mounted round the underside of the deck and going up inside the mast, removing the r.c. tray to get access below was going to cause a problem with the receiver (all the output leads would have to be yanked out). His underling thought that it would be much simpler if the aerial could be disconnected but was very reluctant to cut it. The chap in the drawing office suggested chopping up a “D” connector to get a gold plated pin and socket.

Result:









It was not possible to fit the socket within the receiver and it was felt the heatshrink  would help to keep it tight.

The plan is to finally secure the Rx and battery with cable ties.





The positive leads from the batteries (Rx, Motor, Bilge pump) go to the fuses (0.8A, 2A, 0.8A respectively) and thence to two way switches with charging leads attached to the “off” terminals. (These were designed to be retractable but the two with silicone insulation don’t slide very easily!)





For testing purposes, two 2.5V bulbs were wired in series and connected to the Action P43 unit, using the Rx power supply rails as a supply. I shall have to weigh the power consumption of 6 LEDs (and how often they will be on) against the Rx battery duration. The alternative would be to use the bilge pump battery - assuming this will not be required to operate the pump!

As the Action P81 ESC had not been tried, it was time for a session in the test tank. The video appears to indicate that all went well:



BUT it revealed a problem of Titanic proportions! - see my cry for help post for the details.

Mike

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Martin (Admin)

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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #212 on: November 06, 2013, 12:10:43 pm »


Hey Mike!

 Any progress with your Puffer?    :-)
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #213 on: November 06, 2013, 04:49:52 pm »

Hi Martin,

The short answer to your question is yes! The slightly longer answer is I'm getting even slower in my old age and I've been fiddling with some of the fittings ad nauseam. There will be some pictures appearing shortly.

The sailing at Wicksteed in May was very useful (and quite encouraging) but the reversing problem still needs further investigation. She is currently in a dismantled state as I decided it was time to start painting during the warmer weather.

Thanks for asking - hopefully we''ll see you on Saturday at Warwick.

Mike
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #214 on: November 26, 2013, 07:06:29 pm »

Here we go. As promised, the next instalment.
After the “sea trial” at Wicksteed in May:


- the model was dismantled ready for painting (using Halford’s rattle can primers, grey, black and red).


Very soon, it became apparent that more fittings needed to be mounted before going further, starting with the deckhouse doors.

It seems to me that almost every time I pick up a white metal fitting, it appears to be out of scale, is too heavy, needs modifying to make functional or replacing altogether (Note, so far, the steering wheel, turnbuckles and wash-port covers - not to mention the winch & steering mechanism!).

The deckhouse door hinges were no exception needing sleeves for the pins:


The sleeves were made by drilling 0.7mm holes in bits of 10 BA bolts.

The handles were deemed to be out of scale and unusable, which had the chap in the drawing office scribbling on various bits of paper for days:


The main problem being to allow adjustment for aligning the handle and catch without creating slack or tightness. (14 BA has a pitch of 0.23mm, so half a turn makes quite a difference.)

The starting point is two cheesehead 14 BA bolts with slots made half-round and two bits of 0.66mm wire for the handles:


The bits of wire were soldered onto the heads and trimmed down to 5mm.

The next picture shows the doors with hinges fitted and (on the left) the components of the latch - 14 BA nut, catch, curly piece of acrylic sheet as spring washer, sleeve to be glued into hole in door and 14 BA handle. On the right the latch is shown assembled.


And finally assembled:




The hinge pins were made from 0.66mm wire with mini collars soldered on at the top.

Coming soon - the saga of the portholes!

Mike
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #215 on: November 28, 2013, 03:33:50 pm »

And now for the portholes!

I must confess, this episode is so embarrassing I had decided not to include it - but then reminded myself that the main reason for posting this thread is that anyone reading it can learn from my mistakes.  O0



I had cut holes to fit the white metal castings, planning to make brass replacements with the same diameter. However, the discovery that these could be bought from modelbox.info for 92p each (+£2.50 del.) resulted in a considerable saving in time and labour.



I felt that they needed to be removable as I did not intend to paint them and they might, at some stage, need re-glazing (the deckhouse walls are not removable because of the steering chain). Perhaps the most obvious fixings would be simulated rivets but the chap in the drawing office thought that securing them in the 1.5mm ply of the deckhouse wall might be difficult. The next thought was hex head bolts. As the holes in the rims were 1mm, 14 BA were considered but the heads were too big. (They looked too big and there was insufficient clearance to get a nut-spinner over them.) 16 BA ones were purchased and they looked OK.


Now for the problems!

The new portholes had a diameter of 14.9mm and the holes I had made for the castings were 15.9mm! My initial reaction to this was that I just needed to glue in an insert but this was when I was planning to use 14 BA bolts (and I have a 14 BA tap). When the 16 BA bolts arrived on the scene (and not having a 16 BA tap), there was nothing for it but to hand the problem over to the chap in the drawing office!

He designed a flanged sleeve to secure nuts on the inner surface - which, on paper, impressed his underling. All he had to do was make it - what could be simpler?

Acrylic material was chosen because it would form a solvent weld with superglue when embedding the nuts and would also make a good bond with the deckhouse wall. The lack of any round stock large enough meant wastefully turning down a rectangular block but hey-ho off we went. All a rather delicate operation but we managed to get a pair, each with six wells which were a gentle push fit for the nuts.


The next stage was significantly influenced by the fact that I am sensitive to superglue so I needed to glue the nuts in, keeping them aligned vertically, in the garden with a fan blowing  and keeping my nose at a safe distance!  :D A successful experimental run was performed with the nut held right at the end of a bolt and secured against a PTFE sleeve.


The bolt could be unscrewed from the embedded nut (i.e. hadn‘t got glued in!) so the main task was embarked upon. I started alternating between the rings and the first three went OK


The fourth one, however, proved difficult to push in and the cyano was going off,  so I pushed harder and:


I thought “Oh bother” (or something very similar). Time for a rethink - which resulted in the thought: The problem would be easily solved if I had a 16 BA tap. My experience with small size taps has not been happy (I have three 12 BA taps, all of which produce over-sized holes - the worst being the one I paid most for). However, the 14 BA one, which was cheap, performs well so, after seeking permission from the Management, I bought a 16 BA jobbie from Eileen’s Emporium for £20 (+£4 p&p). It performs excellently!

So now, all I had to do was make a couple of spacer rings, glue them into the deckhouse walls, drill the holes and tap them out.


I had to make this little nut-spinner as a normal one is too chunky.






I know, I know - I can hear you asking “Why on earth didn’t he do it that way in the first place?”.  O0 I blame the chap in the drawing office - he definitely needs putting out to grass!

Coming shortly - an episode where everything went well!!!!!!  :o

Mike

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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #216 on: November 29, 2013, 07:13:21 pm »

And now the final episode of this stage in the build. I hope Martin is impressed with my current rate of posting!

 Quite simply, the mounting of the stern rails. (Nothing went wrong because there was virtually nothing that could!) I had actually cleaned up the stanchions and formed the wire into shape some time ago but delayed installation because of the need for free access to the deckhouse walls.

The old stern deck from the original mock-up came in very handy for bending the wire to the exact shape. I also drilled holes in this for the stanchions so I could ensure everything fitted.



I debated whether to cut the top rail and bend it down to the capping rail prior to gluing but decided against as I suspected fine adjustment would be needed, which would be easier when the wire was secure in the stanchions.

Because of the springiness of the wire, one or two of the stanchions tended to lift slightly, so I made a collection of weights to hold them all down firmly while the epoxy went off.





Why did this remind me of Australia?

And finally:


It's about time I started on the wheelhouse!

Mike

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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #217 on: November 29, 2013, 07:59:03 pm »

lovely work.....novel way of setting the stanchions and rails. :-))
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #218 on: November 29, 2013, 08:23:01 pm »

Thanks Neil

It comes of being a nutcase!

Mike
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Norseman

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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #219 on: November 30, 2013, 02:04:32 pm »

I blame the chap in the drawing office - he definitely needs putting out to grass!

Mike, recent experiences in my underling role has shown I could really do with someone upstairs in the drawing office - even if only part time. Please send your chap here; there is plenty to do.

I am really enjoying reading your build.  :-))

Dave
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #220 on: November 30, 2013, 03:23:39 pm »

Hi Dave

I'd love to send him to you (and I suspect the Management would be delighted with the arrangement!) but there is a snag - his underling is not quite the same without him!  ;D



Regards,
               Mike
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #221 on: July 26, 2014, 06:55:02 pm »

 Time for another, long overdue, update!

 
Before embarking on the wheelhouse, I planned a little snippet just before Christmas. Neil had pointed out that the rudder stock on his Northlight had gone rusty.
http://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,41586.msg419664.html#msg419664
So, I replaced mine with brass but, just before posting, the computer decided to pop its clogs – resulting in the purchase of a laptop (with Windows 8  >>:-( ) and a very long and frustrating data retrieval exercise.

 
Firstly the rudder mod:


 
The wire pins were epoxied in.

http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04295_zps29a3d012.jpg.html][/URL]

 
Now the wheelhouse:
I had to make it rectangular because of the route taken by the steering chain. The panels are a double skin of 1mm ply.


 
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #222 on: July 26, 2014, 07:00:48 pm »

 So far, so good but, all the time the chap in the drawing office is thinking “what about the wiring for the LED's?” Mounting the resistors for these within the wheelhouse would allow a 2 pole connector. The initial idea was to mount them in a chart draw unit but then the external water-tank was chosen – which meant making a hollow one.

 
It seemed obvious that the door should be openable, which meant making hinges and knobs. It all looked fairly straightforward on paper:


 
Tools selected at commencement:


 
Work in progress:
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04494_zps6f80c160.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04495_zps5945eaca.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04496_zps526e004b.jpg.html][/URL]
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http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04498_zpse79617d1.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04499_zpsf5982247.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04500_zps4e466c67.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04502_zpsf7422a20.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04503_zps38c0c4d1.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04504_zps765f50a1.jpg.html][/URL]



 
Tools actually used:
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04508_zps39de0c23.jpg.html][/URL]

 
In the event, it proved very fiddly. Getting the door to hang properly was frustrating but led to a surprising discovery. I currently use Devcon 2 ton epoxy and this can be softened with a hot-air gun even after several days curing – which enabled minute adjustments of the hinges.

 
The first set of door knobs were a dismal failure. I had decided use a 16 BA spindle. As one cannot tap right to the bottom of a blind hole, I soldered nuts into the knobs but, following the clean up after soldering the catch in place, the knobs screwed for ever and epoxy failed to hold them on.
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04531_zpsdc7c56df.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04645_zps4c06a035.jpg.html][/URL]

 
I tapped the replacements right through, which solved the problem.

 
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04803_zps24775943.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04809_zps3a117527.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04810_zps23481f5b.jpg.html][/URL]

 
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04664_zps674ac500.jpg.html][/URL]

 
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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #223 on: July 26, 2014, 07:11:29 pm »

 The navigation LED's were super-glued onto short lengths of acrylic rod, tapped 10 BA so they could be secured to their shelves. They were wired with some wire-wrapping wire (0.25mm, 0.5mm OD) which has heat resisting insulation. Channels were cut into the inner skin to route the wires to the hole into the water-tank. Each of the lanterns was held in place with a single 16 BA screw.

 
Only the inner skin of the roof was glued in place so that the ceiling light LED could be mounted and wired. The outer skin is held in place using the centrally mounted vent.
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04658_zpsa53bd932.jpg.html][/URL]

 
1K pots were used to adjust the brightness of the LED's.
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04813_zps081041ad.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC04815_zps57a52fdc.jpg.html][/URL]

 
Holding the wiring in place proved a bit tricky (I had hoped for a few dabs of aliphatic resin but had to apply it all along the runs).
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC05440_zps156a1cb7.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC05446_zps5370cd63.jpg.html][/URL]

 
Stripping the insulation off the wire-wrapping wire evoked several utterances of “Oh bother!” - or something very similar. Several of them ended up shorter than intended – making the soldering a bit tricky!
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC05491_zps82e1d307.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC05494_zps49bb5116.jpg.html][/URL]


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Re: Caldercraft Northlight Puffer with working Derrick Crane
« Reply #224 on: July 26, 2014, 07:14:22 pm »

 At an earlier stage, I had decided to avoid the problem of clouding plastic by using glass to glaze the windows and found a packet of largish cover slips in the loft. You won't be surprised to learn that “cutting” them to size took a bit of experimentation. In the end, success resulted from holding them in a jig made from thin card and stroking them with tip of the thinnest diamond coated needle file I could find. After several strokes of gentle pressure, they broke spontaneously along the scratch. Again, you won't be surprised to learn that this took a bit of practice – they are 0.16mm thick!

 
Whether they survive when in situ, remains to be seen – I won't be fitting them until later.

 
The staining and varnishing was done before the navigation lights were fitted and wired in. The local stores only had 'Dark Oak', 'Mahogany' or 'Antique Pine' – the latter 'Out of Stock'! I've had a tin of 'Burmese Teak' in stock for donkey's years, so experimented with this. After application and wiping off a lot of the colour with a cloth soaked in white spirit, I thought “That'll do”. It also soaked into the score lines to create a pseudo-planking effect – not brilliant but, once again, I thought “That'll do!”

 
I couldn't get any matt varnish locally, so used satin. This seemed appropriate for the “planked” sides but doesn't look right for the roof. (I have some 'Dullcote' on order.)
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC05497_zps95a31996.jpg.html][/URL]
http://s949.photobucket.com/user/photomultiplier/media/DSC05500_zps2013e709.jpg.html][/URL]

 
This leads me to the thorny subject of weathering! For example, is it best to put rust marks on the water tank before varnishing or after (when it would be easier to 'adjust' or change) – followed by a further coat when satisfied?

 
Most impressed with Darren's “Lady Bute” but I'm not up to his standard!

 
Mike
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