Just the the slipway keels to be fitted now to finish off the bottom of the hull before starting to paint. I wanted a belt and braces fit with these so added some square placcy box section to the inside faces and glued brass pins within. location holes drilled to suit and cyano'd in, and then ran a small bead of cyano down each side of the contact edges and a quick blast of accelerator so it set and looked like welded seams, worked well. Sound as a pound - or is that a contradiction in terms these days?
Now to the side deck handrail stanchions and kicking boards. I was a little apprehensive about these, my association with white metal hasn't improved that much, and I think if hand rails don't look just right, they can really detract from the finish of a model no matter how good the rest may be.
For more reliable fixings all the cast location pins were removed and replaced with brass pins and the triangular base plates then added. The stanchion hole pins that the chain shackles connect to, and that weren't broken by me, were poorly cast, deformed, or all ready broke so I filled the stanchion holes with chemical metal and re-drilled them and used small brass eyes instead.
As there are no dimensions to work to, the stanchions were spread to be visually acceptable and locating holes drilled in the side decks to suit. On the starboard side, the anchor and associated parts need to be considered so the location holes for these were pre-drilled using a template, the stanchions are again spread to visual satisfaction whilst keeping in mind there are kicking board support brackets to be added in between the stanchions on both port and starboard sides.
The kicking boards are shaped (pretty well as marked) to follow the curves and sweep of the decks and a suitable bit of placcy used to set the height.
Although unsuccessful on the front deck, I again decided to try and make up all the stanchions and kicking boards as complete assy's that can be removed for painting and be out the way of my clumsy mitts when doing further work. They may well be the very last items to be fitted before trials. So, the boards were positioned and glued against the stanchions in situ on deck, they were then removed and the stanchion brackets glued in place. The verticals were ok but the brackets for the angled bracing stanchions needed some rework which afterwards, made the holes at the top look a bit iffy - a dollop of thick cyano and blast of accelerator made an acceptable fillet of weld
. It would have been easier if the kicking boards were placed lower down, but then they would of fouled on the spigot of the triangular base plates and not sat tight against the stanchion, the gap between the boards and deck would also be minimal.
Although there was very little room for error, I managed to drill, pin and glue the board support brackets in position from behind the boards having previously filed the bases to the correct angle to suit the deck and then glued brass pins in the base.
A bit of care needed when handling now!
Phew!- am well pleased that it worked this time ............... well at least they stayed together long enough to be painted anyway
Hope to catch you later, bye for now.