Hi artistmike, thanks for your remarks. I do enjoy getting the old boats working again. It gives me a lot of pleasure. There was second one of these boats the same size but in blue more like a yacht. In both cases when the paint was stripped away the wood was in excellent condition but the blue one had no hatch. So I took off a deck house and drilled a hole and put the club endoscope in to have a look, it was as new inside. The endoscope is used to inspect loco boilers for defects. I think he had used Humbrol paints as I matched the original colours without problem.
When I first went to see the couple I was talking to the husband and after 5 minutes he said it was no good talking to him his wife was the technical one. He was all hail fellow well met etc don't think he knew much, except how to earn money! She was a Physics and maths teacher at the local private secondary school.
But when we all got to know him, taught him how to drive a 5 inch gauge loco he was a lot of fun.
These days we all have the ability to restore to better than the original, our materials and glues etc are excellent. However I am still gearing myself up for the 100+ years old yacht I have upstairs!
But I do have a very fragile 36R a lot like Playaway from about 1938 to practice on. Just a shell and a wobbly lead casting in the keel. It looks nice and I have some old gear from a 10 Rater, sails, spars and am looking for a mast to try and keep it contemporary. I have some nice looking vane gears but I think I shall just fit radio.
kind regards Roy