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Author Topic: Scratchbuild- Humber Sailing Trawler  (Read 2963 times)

Brian60

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Scratchbuild- Humber Sailing Trawler
« on: October 06, 2012, 02:39:53 pm »

Hi guys,

I'm going to document here trials and tribulations of building a Humber sailing trawler. Now these are broadly similar to the Brixham sailing trawler, these of course spread right up and around the east coast of the UK 100 years ago, taking on design modifications as they spread north.

Now I could have bought a ready made grp hull and gone from there. However as this was for a  static display the only hull I could find was twice the size I wanted. So armed with a simple plan found in a book I scaled up on the works photocopier. By happy chance A5 to A3 gave me a 1/82nd scale and just over 12 inches of keel, so off I went. Sorry no pics of this bit. I cut all the hull formers from some 2mm card, glued them to the keel also in 2mm card and then filled the spaces with casting plaster. This is easy to sand away and of course later seal.

Many nights of sanding and measuring with a pin gauge and the plaster was the desired shape. I was making a plug to take a grp mould off so that eventually I would end up with 2 or 3 hulls. The plug was painted with dilute pva wood glue and water to seal the pores of the plaster, two coats. Then spray painted  (acrylic primer I had lying around) Once it had dried off it was then polished with several coats of beeswax furniture polish, being allowed to stand a few hours between coats. So that was the plug finished. fairly easy and a technique I have used many times years ago.

So the first almost disaster, the wife calls it a trial, possibly because I was working in the conservatory rather than outside or the garage (too cold for grp work) the house now stinks of grp resin :embarrassed: Anyway as my local supplier of grp stuff is closed on a saturday and being to keen to wait until net week, I wnet off to Halfords the car shop. I came home with two tins of resing and hardener and some glass tissue. Having some experience of grp moulding in the past I got everything prepared on a nice piece of hardboard, strips of tissure cut etc etc. Now NEVER take instructions for granted, the tin said 10ml of resin to 3 cm of hardener paste, so that is what I measured into the jar. I began by coating the plug with resin then embedded my first piece of tissue. I started on the second piece of tissue and the resin had already jelllified in the jar :(( Panic I'm still not sure if I can salvage it or not.

I have mixed up futher resin and used a 1/3rd of the hardener than instructed. The working time on the tin said 20 minutes, even with a 1/3rd of the harderner it was curing in the jar in less than 4! So here is a couple of pics, I'll know later if I have managed to salvage the mould and plug. If not then this topic will start again from scratch :-))

Here's the plug with a 'gel coat' and 1 strip of tissue, before my 2nd lot of resin became unworkable. I now need to go buy some cheap disposable paint brushes from B&Q to finish off this evening.

Brian60

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Re: Scratchbuild- Humber Sailing Trawler
« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2012, 02:53:24 pm »

 Time for an update, now that we have the holidays behind us!
 
The mould was pretty poor as I mentioned in the last post, however with a few hour’s work I was able to salvage it enough to be usable.  From the mould I laid up 3 hull’s, I had decided on a plan of action and it required 3 of them. So the first one will be for a harbour/jetty diorama scene (diorama’s have always interested me from as long ago as childhood) The second and most complex will be a display model for the lounge. The third and simplest to finish will be an attempt to make a sailing craft at this scale. I decided to attempt this after reading of the successful sailing  of small sailing craft in a recent copy of  Model Boats magazine, in for a penny as they say. However  as  the keel to deck measure’s only 2-3 or so inches in depth, this is going to be difficult to achieve. To do so I’m thinking It’s going to have to have a screw in keel weight that will be suspended under the hull (like a yacht)The depth of this I’ll have to work out  when I’m ready to begin this particular boat. Even so I reckon it won’t sail on anything rougher than the proverbial mill pond!
 

Brian60

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Re: Scratchbuild- Humber Sailing Trawler
« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2012, 02:55:45 pm »

 So the first one I’m working on is the diorama boat, as can be seen in the pic’s it now has coat of satin paint and up to bulwark level now.  All of the hulls needed some filling and sanding work after the problems with the mould shell, but not as much as I expected. The outer hull was painted with two brush coats of white primer paint one over the other. This was just a timber product picked up at the local B&Q. Once they had dried they were sanded back using 1000 grit wet and dry paper used dry. Then a third coat was painted over those and again sanded back with the wet and dry paper. So this is tip number one from me, when scaling this small ( is 1/72nd small?) you are in an area of how much detail to include.  I decided not  to include planking detail on the outer hull after studying some photo’s of the Brixham trawler ‘Vigilance’. The planking in the photo’s was visible from around 20-30 feet, any distance greater than that and it disappeared into the paintwork of the hull. So scaling from that I reckon it shouldn’t be visible in the model, especially as the paint is black.
The deck was another matter though, this was lined to simulate planking and then given a wash of walnut wood stain to darken it right down. Once completed the whole ship and the diorama scene will receive ‘weathering’ coats of pigments and washes to make it look like a real aged working scene. The sailing model will be finished with decent paintwork and the one to be built for the lounge will have pristine paintwork (got to keep the wife happy!)
 

Brian60

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Re: Scratchbuild- Humber Sailing Trawler
« Reply #3 on: November 18, 2012, 02:59:13 pm »

 One thing has come to the fore whilst working at such a small scale—that is the need to plan well ahead, some things have to be done in the wrong order just to get them to work properly. I’m already planning rigging and as can be seen in the photo’s of the deadeye’s they are small (3mm), shown with the end of a toothpick for scale. I’ve had to build a jig to hold these the correct distance apart to allow the lacing of the lanyards.
 

Brian60

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Re: Scratchbuild- Humber Sailing Trawler
« Reply #4 on: November 18, 2012, 03:02:28 pm »

 Also because it’s a diorama, I’ve  got to add extra interest, So I also have two Humber Gold Duster’s to go in the scene, one that is moored and one that is going to be sailing early on the incoming tide, obviously the brown one is the one sailing early, it’s awaiting some rigging and sails to be added. The Dusters were of approximately 19-21 feet in length in real life with the trawler coming in at a little over 90 feet. The oars by the way, are correct to length, these little boats were sculled by one of the usually two crew standing up, whilst the second man worked the pots or lines.

 
So to finish for now, I have also found that a commercially available hull is available for a Brixham trawler, so that is on the Xmas wish list, it’s a lot bigger than this, but will be ideal for sailing on my own boating lake (swimming pool) when we emigrate next year!
 

longshanks

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Re: Scratchbuild- Humber Sailing Trawler
« Reply #5 on: November 18, 2012, 07:57:03 pm »

Just spotted Channel 4 tonight at 20 00 hrs - How Britain Worked , restoration of Brixham trawler
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