Topic: Seahunter- The Big Refit! (Read 158746 times)

Tug-Kenny RIP · « **Reply #300 on:** October 10, 2015, 06:51:26 pm »

Quote

First flick switches on channel 1. Second turns on channel 2 etc etc. They all stay on until the last channel (7) and that turns them all off.

That's a subtlety I never appreciated. Sounds just the job. I assume you don't continue up the bank, once switched, but leave the control till later. ?

Thanks for that info

ken

Brian60 · « **Reply #301 on:** October 11, 2015, 10:46:43 am »

Ok back to building with a short update....

First up casting! yep I have dabbled with casting some parts and I think in future where I need more of the same item I will do this, its such an easy process- if you do it your own way! Many will tell you that silicone is needed to make a decent mould, wrong! In these photo's I have used plasticene, remember that from when you were a kid? for the non UK residents, plasticene is kids modelling clay.

I'll start with the easy bits, lights, I rolled out the clay squashed it flat and then pushed an existing light unit in to it to form the shape, then insert the 1.2mm leds in to the form.

Brian60 · « **Reply #302 on:** October 11, 2015, 10:53:30 am »

Then it was on to some exhaust/intake grilles, I would have liked photo etch brass for these but I didn't have a spare arm and leg, so a bit more shaping of plasticene.

I flattened out a piece on the bench and then using a handfull of Stanley blades (boxcutter blades) I pressed the blades into the clay at a 45 degree angle. When you are doing this you have to think backwards. Anything that is recessed needs to be raised in the mould. So after the blade treatment I then made a deeper impression with a strip of wood to form the frame around the grille. On this piece of clay is six vents, but I only need four so I have two for the spares box. Once the impression was made, I rolled out another strip of clay and formed a wall around the edge. These are now ready for resin to be poured.

Brian60 · « **Reply #303 on:** October 11, 2015, 10:58:28 am »

So these two filled with resin and waiting for it to cure. A note about this resin, this is water clear as my primary use of it is to cast floodlights/lamps/spots etc etc. I'm using it for my other castings as I have a kilo of it, normally for 'non glass' parts a cheaper casting resing would be used. The manufacturer thoughtfully didn't include a syringe to measure the catalyst which resulted in me visiting the local pharmacy for an insulin syringe. The measurement is 0.1ml of catalyst to 1gram of resin. So far I have used 20 grams of resin in my castings so a tiny syringe is required!

Brian60 · « **Reply #304 on:** October 11, 2015, 11:01:07 am »

Oops one of those didn't have resin but I'm not going back to edit it out! So on to the finished results, I even used the spare resin to cast a tyre I had, just to see how it would turn out as I am 5 short for the final additions around the hull.

As you can see the results are pretty good for a first attempt.

Brian60 · « **Reply #305 on:** October 11, 2015, 11:05:13 am »

Next up on the casting front is four of the five bridge consoles, I am casting these in resin and embedding leds for the console lighting, I'll show these in the next update.

So on to some wiring, here is one of the spotlights for the bridge roof, one leg of the led is shrouded with brass for strength and with shrink tube for insualtion, the second is bent and formed so as to look like the mounting when it is painted. There are four of these on the roof, two forward and two aft of the funnels.

Lunch is ready, further posts in 30 minutes

Brian60 · « **Reply #306 on:** October 11, 2015, 11:20:55 am »

So on to a little construction. The roof panel with the funnel and battery rooms added along with the spotlights glued in to place. This panel will need on the inside surface a reinforcing pad as the plastic is tending to curl around the edges, some of this will dissapear when glued to the final structure but adding the reinforcing will make it appear totally flat when finished. I've also added brass tube to simulate the funnel exhaust vents.

Brian60 · « **Reply #307 on:** October 11, 2015, 11:28:46 am »

Lastly for now can be seen with the roof sat in place, still not fixed as there is more wiring to pull through once the mast is mounted and of course the fire monitors need to be made and attached to their water supply. Hopefully in these can be seen the port navigation light and one of those intake/exhaust vents I cast in resin earlier, attached to the lower funnel.

ballastanksian · « **Reply #308 on:** October 11, 2015, 03:59:02 pm »

That is an inspired idea casting LEDs integral. You only then have to paint the rear of the lamp body silver and then overpaint with your chosen colour and you have a lamp with bulb and relector!

Brian60 · « **Reply #309 on:** October 11, 2015, 05:04:37 pm »

Its not my idea Ian, I ordered some lights from Germany and this is what I received. Far easier than my making lamp shells and then putting a smled inside and sealing with clear acrylic, it's a brilliant idea I just copied it. There is no need to paint them silver first the head of the led is bent at 90 degrees to its legs so points forward out the front. There is more than enough luminence to not require a reflector. In fact I have painted mine black to stop light passing through the finish paint! Then the top colour is painted over the black. I'll post some photo's in my next update.

ballastanksian · « **Reply #310 on:** October 11, 2015, 07:07:00 pm »

Yes please Brian:O)

Capt Podge · « **Reply #311 on:** October 11, 2015, 11:40:29 pm »

Thanks for the update Brian.

I had a similar problem with light showing through the top of my Port & Stbd nav lights on my Pilot boat. Likewise, I painted the lamp casings black then "brass" colour over the top - that did the trick.

Regards,

Ray.

Brian60 · « **Reply #312 on:** October 18, 2015, 06:57:16 pm »

I can't offer much in the way of a build update this week. I started last weekend with rebuilding the control consoles. After the failure of illuminating them with fibre optic and failing miserably I had decided to leave them. But then no, a break in the UK I decided to remake them in clear casting resing, in other words rather than a shell of plasticard, they now became a solid block of resin - with an led embedded inside. Essentially becoming a giant bulb. During the last week they got 3 coats of matt enamel black and two coats of blue, the surfaces getting 3 coats of light grey. The light still shines through in parts!

So they were cast and epoxied in and the rest of this week has been spent installing wiring for all the bridge illumination, rather a lot of it! The photos show the wiring for the consoles and the stern and p/s nav lights.

Brian60 · « **Reply #313 on:** October 18, 2015, 07:01:53 pm »

I've found that doing jobs like this, 30 minutes or so is enough at the bench or mistakes are made - yep I made a boo boo. I had installed two yellow led's one is lighting the stair well, and the second is the chief engineers cabin - port side front corner. As I had gone along, wiring the leds in series of 2, I had also added the requisite resistor, except it was missed. On attaching the battery to check they blew! requiring new ones to be wired in.

Doing these sort of jobs you can never have enough different leds and resistors! I like to use solder paste, its less messy than standard solder, joins quickly and can be used for railings as well

Brian60 · « **Reply #314 on:** October 18, 2015, 07:06:32 pm »

The first one here shows the bridge roof with yet more wiring, this time its for 4 floodlights to illuminate the workdeck and 4 searchlights, all this wiring is fed down the funnel shells which run inside the bridge. On top of the funnels is yet another deck this time to take the mast and its lighting along with the two fire monitors, that is the plastic thing with two black tubes sticking out of it in the foreground.

Brian60 · « **Reply #315 on:** October 18, 2015, 07:11:20 pm »

Not much to add really, just a few photos taken this evening of the lights working. I can't show them all as they are wired in pairs at the moment. Once all the wiring is completed they will all terminate in a single 2 pin plug and then I can show them all working together.

So first up the orangey glow from the stairwell, and then the p/s navigation lights. I'm unhappy with the green as it isn't as bright as the red, but should be! I may change them this week.

Brian60 · « **Reply #316 on:** October 18, 2015, 07:14:25 pm »

Now the bow or driving

consoles, as you can see there is still some light seepage, I'm unsure whether to give them more paint or leave the ethereal glow at floor level. The the stern navigation lights, yellow above white, for a tow in excess of 200metres. The white is rather brighter than the yellow, I'll fix that this week as well.

Brian60 · « **Reply #317 on:** October 18, 2015, 07:20:33 pm »

Lastly the aft consoles, again with some light seepage. The various dials and gauges were sanded with an emery board to remove surface paint and then lightly touched with red/green nail polish - borrowed from swimbo while she was out! It gives the effect of various buttons etc which is what I was after. The dissapointment for me though was the computer screens, they were supposed to light up as well. Light was showing at the bottom of the drilled holes but obviously hasn't made the transition through the superglue and up the screen supports.

So thats it for now, hiopefully I'll make better progress this week.

Brian60 · « **Reply #318 on:** October 19, 2015, 08:15:28 am »

I forgot to add this last night for BallastanksIan..

Its self explanatory, just showing the different sizes of led's available. At the ends are two floodlight housings with the led embedded, these are made with waterclear casting resin, using plasticene as the mould. Just make up one master floodlight. press it into the plasticene for however many lamps are required, insert the led - the legs on mine are bent to 90degrees so the led faces out the front for maximum light. Instead of doing this you could bend them parallel to the led so they come out of the sides, then pour in the resin and allow to harden! The advantage of doing the second way is once the lamp is removed from the mould you will have the housing with a leg sticking out of each side. Bend them downwards and they can be disguised as the lamp bracket!

Mine come out the bottom or top whichever way you hold it, because I wanted to bend them backwards so they insert through bulkhead walls.

Brian60 · « **Reply #319 on:** October 25, 2015, 05:07:07 pm »

OK I've got through a lot of work this week but not much to show for it.

As I mentioned above I have finally got all the control consoles in place with some lighting working. For some reason and I am thinking it may be oilyness on the surface of the consoles from the plasticene moulds, the paint doesn't like to cover certain areas. But as they are epoxied into place I can't do anything about it now. So here's a couple of them lit up and the navigation lights showing as well.

Brian60 · « **Reply #320 on:** October 25, 2015, 05:12:57 pm »

So once I realised there was no solving that problem I moved on. Next up was wiring all the led's on the mast so it could be attached to the top of the funnels/exhaust vents.

The mast being brass I used it as the earth/ground/negative wherever you are in the world. The lives were run up the outside using enamel covered copper wire used for motor winding! It came in .1mm diameter and I now have a bobbin with 350metres still left on it

I hope to get them grouped together up the mast so it looked natural, but every so often a strand escaped from the superglue.

Brian60 · « **Reply #321 on:** October 25, 2015, 05:21:37 pm »

The idea I worked on here was that they would once the mast was mounted, the wires would be joined in pairs to a resistor hidden inside the what on the real ship is the battery room, that is the room between the funnel structures.

Then I cut the roof of this structure in ply and then clad it with plasticard. Work commenced on the fire monitors, for ease of build I bent two pieces of brass tube to the correct angle. Then made up the curly bits by warming plastic rod over a flame and twisting around 5mm brass tube. These were then cut and sanded to fit then epoxied to the brass tube. The photo's show trial fitting of the roof so that any fiddling could be done before its all glued together.

Brian60 · « **Reply #322 on:** October 25, 2015, 05:28:18 pm »

OK the bit you've all been waiting for, the mast is now in place on the roof . Remember earlier when I said that each light was wired in pairs? well for some reason the lower port red and the starboard spotlight are now not working! I can do something about the towing light but nothing can be done for the spotlight.

Brian60 · « **Reply #323 on:** October 25, 2015, 05:30:41 pm »

Almost done with this update.

A few more from aft of the roof, showing the four floodlights for the work deck illumination and the two searchlights all working.

cos918 · « **Reply #324 on:** October 25, 2015, 05:31:34 pm »

Looks real good.
Thats a real pain when you test ever thing before fitting then some thing stops working when fitted . Check your joints on the leds ,you might get lucky .

john

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Author Topic: Seahunter- The Big Refit! (Read 158746 times)