Topic: Seahunter- The Big Refit! (Read 160191 times)

Brian60 · « **on:** October 28, 2014, 03:47:25 pm »

Well I've posted a couple pics of this ship before but got waylaid with my smack build, now thats its finished I can begin. First photo, 01, shows my two boats, I salvaged the best hull and scrapped the other (shouldv'e put it on Ebay!) The hull was shipped over to our home in Spain where I am now about to start work on it.

Brian60 · « **Reply #1 on:** October 28, 2014, 03:50:11 pm »

So I got it outside and stripped it out completely, the idea was to do a keel up rebuild, so everything came out, prop shafts,bulkead supports the lot, it left a very rough internal structure. Next was to give the outside a complete sanding to remove as much paint from the grp hull as possible.

Brian60 · « **Reply #2 on:** October 28, 2014, 03:59:51 pm »

Now the last two photo's show my major problem when my wife said I could have a small workbench in HER artroom I totally forgot about how big this hull is! I'll just have to work as best as possible although I can clear most of the glues and solvents into a box underneath.

So what have I got done so far? I have the stripped out hull I still need to remove the deck supports and install new ones, but I've left the old stuff to add rigidity for now. I have cut out the old moulded in stern roller it always looked wrong, and built a new one that actually revolves. I am waiting delivery of new prop shafts and running gear from the UK, once it has arrived, I can glass them into place with resin and repair the rest of the inside of the hull.

This hull being very close to the classic Smit-LLoyd 120 series of of offshore craft, there are many styles of ship I can actully build, although no decision has to be made until I am actually ready to install decks. I plan on having working sharks jaws by the stern roller, along with many other working functions, so that's it for now, another update once the propshafts are installed, oh yes and the bow/stern thrusters, I'll need to dig those out of storage

Brian60 · « **Reply #3 on:** October 30, 2014, 10:39:23 am »

Just a short update from the last couple of days, I know the basics are boring but they have to be done before moving on to the exciting parts...

SO these are pics of the the bow/stern thruster install. I've had these for a number of years and took them from yet another hull I consigned to the scrap yard. The first is the tube cut to roughly the size I needed with the power unit by its side and the second with it assembled.

Brian60 · « **Reply #4 on:** October 30, 2014, 10:47:57 am »

The next one is the stern tube roughed in. Then the fourth and fifth photo's are the bow and stern tubes epoxied into place and first finish done, still more sanding to be carried out beforeits ready final primer and top coats. The last one shows a hiccup that I thought would happen at the stern. This part of the hull is so narrow that the prop almost sits at the end of the tube. I have two options for this, the first is to shorten the shaft and narrow the width of the prop itself (from the blades to the rear of the boss), this I think will be the easiest option.

merseyferry · « **Reply #5 on:** October 30, 2014, 07:40:12 pm »

you have a lot of work there brian ..looking good so far

ill follow your progress ,itll be a stunning model when finnished regards pad

Brian60 · « **Reply #6 on:** October 31, 2014, 11:30:04 am »

Thanks for the comment Pad. I'm in it for the long haul, because it's a refit of an old hull there is plenty of work involved just to get back to decent start point. Once I have the stern roller and thrusters installed I'll move on to internal supports. Then I can sort out knocking the outer hull back into shape, only then will I consider the build really under way as a new model!

JaS · « **Reply #7 on:** October 31, 2014, 02:41:30 pm »

Hello Brian

What a interesting project, these are just mine kind of ship, interesting with a complete rebuild, also like yours way to recycle old parts so they come to alive again, keep us updated, when finished it just gone be super.

Cheers
Jack

Brian60 · « **Reply #8 on:** November 01, 2014, 08:53:49 am »

Thanks for the comments Jack. Like my sailing smack build I'll update this every week or so. So you just need to pop back every so often to see the progress.

Brian60 · « **Reply #9 on:** November 04, 2014, 10:52:21 am »

Not a lot to add, my prop shafts have arrived! Airmail Cornwall to Alicante area of Spain, only took 12 days

So I am about to start the grp work of putting those in and patching up the hull where needed with extra glass cloth.

Here are two pictures, the first is the original construction of the Wimpey Seahunter, shown as the Med Sette after she was sold on. Then we have the POSH Venture. I have decided to rebuild her as the latter. Its a more up to date look, the Venture was completed in 2008 whereas the Seahunter was built in 1984. Fortunately it is virtually the same hull, I managed to download plans of the Venture from their website for comparison.

So next update will be the propshafts in place and new deck supports epoxied in- with an explanation of what was wrong with the stern thruster.

radiojoe · « **Reply #10 on:** November 06, 2014, 08:46:01 pm »

Hi Brian, I'm following your rebuild with interest, you mentioned Wimpey, I worked for them from 1965 to 1976, they were a huge company back then in many industries, from 1976 on I was in the boat/ship building industry probably why I have the boat modelling bug.

Joe.

Brian60 · « **Reply #11 on:** November 07, 2014, 08:02:41 pm »

Wimpey were a huge construction company when I was a pre-teen, I remember a huge new council estate they constructed in Hull between '66 and'70 it was a wondeful playground for kids of my age. I wonder what happened to them? possibly absorbed by and even bigger construction company.

radiojoe · « **Reply #12 on:** November 07, 2014, 08:47:57 pm »

They are still around Brian, after gobbling up Mc Alpines and John Lang's in the early 2000's they merged with Taylor Woodrow in 2007 and became Taylor Wimpey , who are presently rebuilding a housing estate a few miles from where I live, ironically the estate that was demolished to make way for the new one was one I worked on in 1972 for that's right, George Wimpey &Co.

Brian60 · « **Reply #13 on:** November 09, 2014, 09:56:19 am »

A short update as I'm still waiting on the Kort nozzles being delivered. So, when I first built this boat I took shortcuts and not knowing better basically bodged together deck supports.

This time around I am building a proper support that can be dropped into place and epoxied to the grp hull in one piece after all the running gear is added. The beginnings of this substantial piece of woodwork cab be seen in these two photo's. Once the aliphatic resin has glued on these joints I can add the periphery timber that will support the deck edges. I'll post another photo later in the build that will demonstrate this frame as completed for a better understanding of what I mean.

Brian60 · « **Reply #14 on:** November 09, 2014, 10:04:05 am »

The next photo is the bow thruster epoxy putty'ed into place and then a layer of grp tissue and resin over the putty. Then a view of the stern thruster likewise epoxied and covered with grp resin and tissue. This photo also shows the internal ends of the propshaft tubes fastened in with grp tissue and resin. The white stuff on the bottom is 25year old resin (with colouring) from the first build. While talking about the lateral thrusters, I had a shock on the Cornwall Model Boat site two days back, while looking at propellors I came across their page with these thrusters on it, £70 each

I'm so glad I hoard stuff away for maybe a time in the future! These almost hit the bin along with plenty of other stuff when we cleared out the loft space.

Brian60 · « **Reply #15 on:** November 09, 2014, 10:23:08 am »

The last two photo's are the external view of the prop shafts, these are 8inch tubes and as you can see there is not a lot outside of the hull. My original plan and also the new one of the POSH Venture shows a length of exposed driveshaft supported at the Kort nozzle end by a large bearing housing. I still had these from the first build so I will use the housings again, along with the old propshafts which are 14inches in length. So the only bits of the new propshafts I am using are the new shaft tubes. The second photo shows the old propshaft in the new housing with the approximate position of the propellor and Kort nozzle.

Oh yes harking back to an earlier post where I showed the stern thruster propellor overhanging the hull edge. I knew there was something wrong as it was all ok on the dry fit. It turned out I had inserted the drive and propellor facing toward the starboard side, when it should have pointed to port. The drive was offset on its mounting so while it would fit faciing either way, I had cut the tube so that it was centred in one direction and not the other due to the confines of the narrow stern section of the hull. The drive housing can just be seen in the tube in the last photo's, the prop now being on the other side!

radiojoe · « **Reply #16 on:** November 09, 2014, 10:47:42 am »

Hi Brian, nice going, I can see that she is going to be a really robust boat.

Brian60 · « **Reply #17 on:** November 16, 2014, 10:21:39 am »

Again not a lot achieved over the last few days. I am stuck waiting for the Kort nozzles arriving from the UK, I think the Spanish Correos (post office) should rename their version of airmail to snailmail

So I have made up motor mounts for the bow and stern thrusters, the first photo shows the bow plate in place. I have used Gorilla glue to attach the mount to the grp hull, this stuff has set like concrete in 24 hours. So the question I asked about it in the glue section means I will use the stuff to attach the support frame to the hull as well.

The next photo are the main drive motor mounts, due to how low the propshafts sit in the deck I have had to bond these direct to the hull.

The next two photos are the external openings for the thrusters. Some ships have a safety grille over the openings, in the case of this ship the plan shows vertical bars, so that is what I have gone with, using 17 gauge fencing wire bent into shape. Once the Kort nozzles arrive and I can get them bonded in the hull will be almost ready for paint, just some final sanding and filling prep to carry out.

Brian60 · « **Reply #18 on:** November 16, 2014, 10:52:27 am »

So here we have two photo's of the internal framework. This is almost complete now but can't be bonded into the hull because I need access to install the rudders and I can't install these until the Kort nozzles are attached. I haven't incorporated the forecastle deck support due to the massive curvature involved. Once I can get the main frame installed the foredeck supports will be added seprately.

merseyferry · « **Reply #19 on:** November 16, 2014, 11:08:13 am »

looking good there brian

Brian60 · « **Reply #20 on:** November 18, 2014, 11:55:18 am »

It's coming along slowly Pad!

Anyway today started with a trip into town to collect my Kort nozzles from the post office only as Iv'e said before almost a 20k round trip, this time the parcel took 15 days, I swear I could have walked from the UK with them in a shorter time!

Thanks to Mobile Marine Models the Tugnology people, for two quality pieces of casting these can be seen in the first photo. No time to waste and straight into the craft room to get started on the installation. Photos 2 and 3 show the first one mounted on a cardboard disk attached to the propshaft for alignment purposes. There wasn't enough space between the nozzle and the hull to install the spacer that came with the nozzles, so I left those out and drilled direct through the hull and used short lengths of steel rod and epoxied these into holes drilled in the Kort nozzles. Once I have the second one mounted I can fill in around them with car body filler as suggested in the Kort instructions, this will be for the next update.

The last photo is the beginnings of a Becker rudder. The old rudders I removed were just flat brass plates soldered to the shafts. I have plated these with plywood to give them shape and also cut down the trailing edge to add a Becker flap, this won't be a working flap, I can't be bothered to work out the geometry for the pivot point. So the flap will be fixed to the main part of the rudder but will look the part when finished.

Thats it for now, I'll have the propulsion gear fitted in the next few days so another update will follow once that is complete. Of course nothing would be right here unless I mentioned that once again I am waiting the postie, this time for my Kort props, and before anyone wonders, they were ordered from a different supplier to the Kort nozzles!

Brian60 · « **Reply #21 on:** November 21, 2014, 07:02:52 pm »

OK the last few days have been ones of exasperation. It seems every time I attempt to do something I am not happy with the end result, meaning there has been a lot of procrastination and head scratching. Here's a photo of both Kort nozzles in place, I am not happy with one of them. The one on the left of the photo is out of position by about 2mm, its actually tilted in the fore and aft plane.

I was going to remove it and re-position but it would be a hell of a lot of work, the mountings that came with them were too big to use, so I drilled through the hull and into the top of the nozzle 3 times. I then pushed 2mm steel pins through and epoxied them to the hull and Kort nozzles. It seems on this one that the tape etc holding the nozzle in place had slipped during the epoxy curing period, hence the nozzel has tilted. So before that side is finished I need to put the propellor in (haven't got them yet!) and turn the motor over to see if we are touching anwhere.

So to the mountings, once the epoxy had set I filled the space with car body filler Isopon P38, sanded it to shape once set and then because its quite soft, I used grp resin and glass tissue, and covered the P38, once that had set I filled any roughness with Squadron White. This is a celluslose filler used extensively in the plastic model world, its a very fine filler paste.

I'm going to spend the weekend making up the supports for the Kort nozzles and prop shaft end bearing- again I was going to use the old brass ones for these, except as they are not packed in any of my boating stuff, means I must have disposed of them in the UK!

Brian60 · « **Reply #22 on:** November 21, 2014, 07:07:32 pm »

Next the old rudders were altered as previously described to imitate Becker rudders. I painted the wood cladding on them with left over grp resin from doing the Kort mounts. They seemed ok and sanded down to a nice smooth surface. Then this afternoon I gave them a quick coat of primer, it seems the resing never coated one of them as well as it looked! So it'll be more of that Squadron white to fill the grain that is still showing, then another good sanding for them both, now the paint is on the top an bottom pivot mounts look too obviously glued on so they need some more work as well.

Brian60 · « **Reply #23 on:** November 26, 2014, 09:40:39 am »

Next update:--

I'm still stymied by the propshaft bearings that are located just in front of the Kort nozzles, I want some brass tube of the correct diameter so that I can solder the whole unit including support structure together. Yesterday I made the 90 kilometre round trip to our local

version of B&Q (BricoDepot) I picked up some brass tube of 6mm and 4mm diameter, even that isn't any use for the next job. Those familiar with the model shop brass tubing know that 3mm slides inside 4mm, 4mm slides inside 5mm etc. So would this except you can't get the odd numbered sizes, they had 2,4,6,8, no 10 or 12mm which is what I needed, ho hum.

I can't order from the UK as by the time it arrives we will be back over there for the Xmas period so I will be able to pick it up myself from the local model shop. The support brackets are now on hold until January!

So I have got mounted the rudders. On the upper mount, nearest the hull, can be seen the skegs I have added which would have the Becker arm mechanism. On the lower part of the Kort is the bearing housing I have made up for the rudder. This was not detailed in the original plan or the one I have downloaded for the Venture, So I did what looked 'right'

The first photo shows the mounts epoxied in place and with a coating of car body filler and the second shows it with it sanded smooth. The pink that can be seen is Isopon P38 body filler and the white is as mentioned earlier the Squadron white, plastic kit filler that the plastic modellers use. The brown showing throught the filler is the wooden base. What i haven't photgraphed was the brass bracket that supports the rudder expoxied into the Kort nozzle. The bearing housing you see is not structural but a shroud, but just to make things look the part.

Brian60 · « **Reply #24 on:** November 26, 2014, 09:46:52 am »

This is Squadron white. as I said its a plastic filler that is cellulose based, Squadron make 3 types I think, the white is the finest so once set and it sets rock hard! can be filed and sanded to a really smooth finish. depending on thickness it can take a few minutes or a few hours to set up. Too thick and it won't set at all, so best to build it in layers. Another tube on the xmas shopping list!

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Author Topic: Seahunter- The Big Refit! (Read 160191 times)