The other bits that I felt needed to be sorted out prior to paint were the bits what were the anchors go up to - not the hawse pipes themselves (if I even have that term right...) but the big fat bumper bits on the bow where the anchor rests - these bits:
I have no idea what these are called, so if someone can tell me I will have learnt something else today!
Anyway, they needed to be made. I considered several approaches including gluing or soldering several washers together to make them and molding them with epoxy as I had done with other bits. But I couldn't find suitable washers and neither could I figure out what to make a mold out of.
Several weeks went by and then on Good Friday I was looking at all the crap I have on my shelves and spotted a plastic container of solder. "Hmm..." I thought, "there may be a use for that" and there was! So I took the remaining solder out and cut the tube into pieces then hot-glued them to a bit of play to use as a base:
I then mixed up the remainder of my epoxy and poured it into the tubes and let it set.
Today (Easter Monday) I removed the hot melt glue, prized the tubes and epoxy off the ply and cut the tube. Fortunately the epoxy didn't stick to the tube at all (I was counting the fact that it might not), so once the tube was cut, it came away quite easily:
I then drilled a 5/32 hole through the centre of each bit, into which I put a 5/32 screw and fixed that in place with a nut. This I then placed into the drill in my drill press and, having marked out the length I wanted, proceeded, with the drill running, to use a small hacksaw, held horizontally and still (the drill turning provided the cutting motion, all I had to do was adjust the depth of the blade continuously), to cut away the excess:
Half an hour or so's work with, sandpaper, chisel and rasp allowed me to shape and profile the cured epoxy to what I wanted - more or less:
Since this last photo I have removed some of the excess of the smaller diameter length as it was too long, and now, to my eye, it looks good. I may revisit that again, and I still need to do the other one too.