Radar Gun pt1

Progress has been halted lately as a result of another hobby; I've broken another hand mountain biking. Hopefully a quicker recovery this time but who knows.  This staying healthy lark is unhealthy!

Before trying to rip my thumb apart, I made a start on the radar.  Jackie at Model Slipway very kindly sent me the resin radar they now send with the kit instead of the vac form that came with mine.  It's a big improvement...

The problem for me though is motorising the radar arm.  I want the motor to be in the radar housing itself so the mast can fold.  I considered drilling out the resin but it would have been really tricky and my motor is I think fractionally too big.  So, back to the drawing board.  I've come up with a two part box with a removable top just in case.  At the moment, it's just the basic box former; the plan is to add shape with 0.5mm styrene panels or filler or a combination of both.

That the progress so far, more when I'm fixed!

Mast(erblaster) Part 3

I'm still working on the mast!  The lower mast is now complete, save for the radar platform, and having to remove on of the upper mast supports in order to fit the platform.  So that means I've added the U section base parts; drilled for the hinge and hydraulic rams and brackets for the aerials.  The latter were really fiddly as I decided to make slots in which to solder them but ended up breaking several drill bits trying to chain drill slots!

The upper mast is also done and with working LEDs for the nav lights and blue and orange flashing lights.  The two nav lights are wired in parallel, so only one pair of wires to feed through the mast.  The blue and orange lights have separate +ve wires for separate switching but a common -ve.  The platforms were made by sandwiching 0.75 styrene sheet with channels cut for the wiring between two pieces of 0.25mm styrene.

Finally, for now, the port and starboard nav light boxes have been folded up, having been drilled for the LED wiring.  The plugs on the bottom are aluminium tube and are a little over scale but necessary to take the LEDs given the size of LEDs and the boxes.  I first soldered the boxes to the mast frames but having looked at reference photos saw that they are on brackets.  Far too fiddly for me to make from brass and solder so I settled on 0.75mm styrene and superglue.  Not ideal but relatively solid.

The next jobs are to fit the mast platform, add the small brackets (cable ties on the full size boat) to attach the wiring conduits and then to add the bracket for the attachment point to the side rails on the flying bridge.  Then it's the 'H' aerial on the mast top.  Oh, and I need to make the CCTV camera that's underneath the mast platform.  Hopefully, it's then time to paint.  The finish line is in sight for the mast, even if I've no idea how long it'll take to finish the boat!

Mast(erblaster) Part 2

Work on the mast has continued.  The braces are all on as is the bracket for the upper mast.  That was the trickiest part; in fact the two pieces forming the top 'V' took me all day to get right!  Still all's well that ends well.  All parts are 3.2mm brass tube save for the sleeve for the upper mast which is 4mm brass tube.

Here's a few photos of work so far;

I need to re-align the base tube for the upper as it's very slightly off the vertical.  I also need to remove on of the support pieces in order to fit the platform for the radar as it should be one piece from to back.  I'm not sure yet whether to make it from 0.5mm styrene or 0.5mm brass.

Just the bottom pieces to go and then attention turns to the top mast, mast platforms, radar, lights and wiring...

Mast(erblaster) part 1

So, onto (save for the Y-boat) the last major component build on the boat; the mast.  Looking at the full size boat and the plans, the 2 'arch' pieces are canted forward but with all the braces and radar platform being horizonal.  My initial plan was to canabalise the cast metal mast bases in the kit by cutting out the brace and replacing with a brass brace.  However, when I looked at the pivot point and attaching dummy hydraulic rams and the lifting mechanism, I decided the base pieces needed to be U channel and not cast solid.

So that meant ditching the cast bases, drawing a plan for the mast and machining a square brass tube to a U channel.  So here's a picture of the drawing and some but not all of the mast pieces.

I also noticed from photos of the full size boat that the arches and one pair of braces were a larger diameter that the rest of the mast.  So I used the kit arch pieces, made one pair of cross braces from 4.0mm brass tube with all other pieces from 3.2mm brass tube.  I decided that I would drill and pin the cross braces as well as soldering them, so I used tube of the next size down as pins.

It was a real struggle to get everything at the correct angle even with my drawing, I must have soldered the thing together and pulled at apart at least 3 or 4 times!  The other mistake I made was to use superglue to tack the radar platform to the arch pieces.  As soon as I tried to solder the joints, the glue melted, therefore stank, and contaminated the solder flow.  So lesson learnt.

Still, it's heading in the right direction now…

Even though, that's less than half the total pieces needed!

Paint it Black (and orange...)

It's been a while since I've posted but I've been busy.  Not much progress for the time involved but at least the build is going forward albeit with several steps back.

I've painted the wheelhouse inside and out.  It's taken a lot of effort to get to the finish in the photos below, lots of rubbing down and repainting as I've struggled to get a decent finish.  As it is it still needs flatting down and then polishing back up with rubbing compound and then polish.

I've also painted some of the smaller components...

There's an issue with the hull paint too!  I painted it with Halfords Gloss Appliance White and left it several weeks to dry.  But, and it's a big but, the stand is marking the hull.  I've tried mouse map as recommended by Model Slipway, masking tape on top of the mouse mat and felt.  The felt is better then the others but still leaving marks.  I'm now thinking of a stand redesign to spread the boat's weight over the stand better in the hope that will work!

Grilled

This is something I've been scratching my head about for a while.  It's how to make a replacement grill for the port engine intake.  This is needed following my modification to enlarge the intake as per the full size boat so that it extends down under the flybridge floor (insert link).

I couldn't find any brass shim to use, even if my soldering skills had been up to it so instead I used 0.25mm thick styrene strip in 0.5mm and 3.2mm widths.  I've made several attempts and they had all ended up looking like the one on the left below or worse

No matter how little glue I used, it ended up distorting.  After several months of thinking of alternative I suddenly thought of using double sided adhesive tape.  It's the one on the right above and in situ  here;

Until next time.

All Hooked Up

I'm trying to get the cabin to a stage where it can be painted.  As usual though, just when I think I've thought of everything that first needs doing, there's more to add to the list.  And today the weather broke, so out with the sunny and perfect spray painting conditions and in with rain.  So painting is postponed anyway!

After the long job of the cabin interior, I've been adding bits and pieces to the cabin.  So, the holes are now drilled for the whip aerials, the boat hook boxes are fitted and the safety line anchor points are marked.  I'll add these last as they are white metal and got a bit knocked on the Trent.

I've also been making the brackets for the comms speakers as these are quite prominent on the front of the wheelhouse, although less so at the stern.  These will be painted on the inward face and then glued to the cabin as it would be difficult to ger full paint coverage once they're attached.

I'm hoping that all that's now left to add are the vac form radome and the SIMS screen for the flying bridge/USP.  I'm using a keyring digital photoframe but need to wire it up for a remote switch and battery box.