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[Neil]

D CLASS LIFEBOAT, A NEW CHALLENGE..
When I worked on a vac formed D Class lifeboat in early 2022, making all the tooling and two prototype models of the boat, one of which I gave to Martin Kinghoward to finish and donate to [i think] Skegness RNLI, I was certain that because it was formed from 1.25mm plastic, there would be ample room in her for radio gear under the floor.
At the blackpool show of 2022 a certain model boat kit manufacturer, and one i had not dealt with before said they would like to develope it into a kit.
Sadly that has never appeared two and a half years on.
So when Liam Bell came forward to very kindly print a D class for the Clyde I am building soon we got chatting after I had built it said to Liam, I would love to make a working model of one but the was too little room inside once the deck of the rib was put in place.
So it set me thinking, and told Liam what i thought and was it practical. We both agreed that on paper it was thought to be practicable to do, but if it failed at the end of the day, at least I had tried, as there was no posibility of changing the program for 3 d printing it with a deeper hull.
And so, the first job was to glue the parts of the two hulls together, which, as i had done with one only a few weeks before, i built the two ribs using epoxy to glue them together.[/i]

[JimG]

Neill have you looked at the sub micro radio gear used in indoor radio control aircraft to help fit one out for RC. Many of them are designed for a 1S LiPo so even the battery is small.
Jim

[Neil]

thanks Jim, but never seen that sort of gear, however I m 100% no against lipo batteries, i am  glad to say, as nearly lost a good friend down in Oxford due to the batteries he was charging went up in flames when he fell asleep watyching TV.

His whole 17 century home was gutted and had it not been for his Alsation dog dragging him off the sofa and waking him up, he and his dog would have perrished  too.

 So no lipos for me thanks and NO amount of positives about them will change my mind, as i dont look after my  SLA and nimhs that good anyway.................an a disaster waiting to happen to be honest.lol.

[Neil]

Second stage of making these models to work with enoughspace in the hull for motors and other electrical equipment  has been a bit of a long thought process and trial, which won't go down well with the rivet counters, but I've never been one for appeasing that brigade anyway.

If it looks right from 10 yards out, then its ok with me.

So I eventually decided to raise the deck height from that as printed by 10mm.

For this I cut a good number of 10mm width x 2mm thick pieces of plasticard and glued theem in with liquid poly from EMA Plastics in London and glued them in one strip at a time so that each strip glued to the last and followed the curvature of the hull at the bow. And layed in 4 5 strips at both sides and the stern.

And in the past hour I have, cut by cut made a template for the deck which will sit on to the support strips nicely.

That will now be transfered on to a sheet of plasticard, at 1.5mm thickness for the two ribs.

[minimariner]

                 Neil,
                            My working Speedline 1/12 scale Y boat.


                                           Bryan.

[Neil]

thats a little cracker.............have you got photos of the inside and the radio gear,,,,,,,,,,would love to see it if possible please.

[Neil]

I'm glad to say that once the decks on the two ribs had been marked on card as a template and then transfered to 2mm plasticard, the decks cut out, centre access holes cut out and then stepped supports for the cut out centres to access the inner decks and the electronics, they were glued in place with liquid polly.
I am amazed how the 3d printed plastic takes to liquid polly and the plasticard pieces.
And now looking at it, although the deck is higher than it should be by 12 mm, there is now plenty of room to fit in the radio gear. and motor and batteries.

[minimariner]

          Neil,
                    Will get the Y boat out as soon as possible and take some photos for you.


                                          Bryan.

[Neil]

thanks for your help. cheers.

[minimariner]

             Neil,
                       Email sent.

[Neil]

thanks Bryan, have replied.

[Neil]

Stuffed again.........cant find a program to print a Mariner 50HP outboard for my D Class rub, so am going to make 3 .


So I pressed the old Atlantic 21 motor in to plasticine and took 3 sets of mouldings in 2 halves, and will work on these to make 3 Mariner motors. which can hopefully be scanned ready for future printing.


The two halves of each have been clamped together with spring clamps so that the halves will stay together whilst still rubbery untill they cure, and will leave untill tomorrow.


Only thing to do now is take my daily pills and a beer.

[Neil]

Yesterday I moulded 3 sets of the two halves of of the single outboard that I still had from one of the number of Atlantic 21's that I have built over a number of years.
Although the top part of the boat, the cover to the engine on the real motor  was the wrong shape for the Mariner needed for the D class the rest of the outboard is very similar and so I would use that engine as a base to make the Mariner outboard.
After all as the bottom half of the motor is under water most of the time or at my home as it will be, its stuff to the rivet counters lol.
So I have sanded the inside edges that will be glued together [but which need some more sanding before gluing together] . However, as the engine cover is different to the old Evinrude, I have cut off on my band saw the top part of the moulding so that once i have made the engine covers from plasticard, I can add a similar fitting to locate the engine cover in the right possition.

[Neil]

This afternoon the 3 outboards have had their two halves glued together with 2 part epoxy, and after a lot of paring, pruning and sanding they are now ready for the above process of making the top boxes to turn them in to Mariner motors from the original Evinrudes using some plasticard.

 Thats the next job.

[Neil]

the top engine covers and bases have been fabricated from 1,2mm plasticard and glued together liberally with liquid polly glue and now left to cure and harden, before all sharp edges sanded smooth and all rounded off the sharp edges. to make them "flow" smoothly.

[Neil]

A little more sanding in a finer grade sanding paper to finish them off for painting  and the Mariner outboards can have the mounting brackets made for the outboards.

For that and other detailing i will have to go to Fleetwood lifeboat station to get some photos of our local boat.

[Neil]

I sat there last night after finishing the engine covers for the outboards on the D class, and a photo of an actual RNLI D class, and my heart sank.
I had totally got them wrong in so many ways, and without going in to detail as to why other than I had seen an old picture of an old rib I realised that I had to scrap the ones i had made and make nerw ones.


So here they are, after an afternoons work .

AUHHH WELL!!!, you live and learn.

[Neil]

I couldnt work out for the life of me the method of hanging the outboard on the real Rib, so using ideas from the Atlantic 21 and the later 75 that I had seen at Blackpool numerous times, plus a photo of an old D class, I concocterd a "clamp" and a hanger for the otboard for these D Class boats.


They don't look too out of place when all is put together, and tbh, as I am trying to construct these as working boats, dont think they'll look too bad on the lake.