Last Orders at the Bar

Right, I've now finished one of the biggest challenges on the build, and also made it harderfor myself to boot: I've finished the transom bar.

The first job was to seal the dowel, but mine was jagged on one side.  So that took filler and time to put right.  I almost bought a new dowel but my local timber merchant didn't carry the right diameter.  So, with the filler sanded smooth and after several coats of sanding sealer, rubbing down each coat, it was time to get sawing.

Having seen the full size boat, there is are two angled pieces at each end of the bar, not one, so I decided a modification was needed.  Using the kit plans as a base, I drew the revised shape, together with cutting angles.  These were worked out using the RNLI plans.  I used my mitre box to get vertical cuts and held it over the drawing to get the correct angle.  A tricky operation all in all.

With all the parts cut, they were glued using superglue gel, fine tuning the angles where necessary with the superglue acting as a filler as well.

Then the stantion uprights were added.  The two uprights which pass through the top and bottom bars have a thicker bottom section so I used 4.8mm plastic tube there.  Hopefully the photos show this all clearly.  I've also added the deck base plates but these need a little more work.  The whole of the upright at each end passes through the deck rather than just the stantion partly because that seemed easier than shaping the bottom of the uprights to fit the deck camber but mainly because I pinned the bar assemble ot the uprights to add strength and the pins stop the stantions running all the way through the uprights.

I'm off to work on the other railings next.

Deck the Hulls

A big step forward this time; I've joined the deck to the hull.  It went quite well though there was a bit of swearing and I probably could have got the fit better in places.  Still, nothing a bit of P38 filler and rubbing down won't cure.

I was going to wait until all of the Y-Boat compartment including the transom door opening was ready before joining the deck.  Dry runs showed the compartment module would slide in afterwards though so I went for it.

I also decided that with only very limited access to the rudders, through the Y boat compartment, I needed better access behind the main deck opening.  So, I've cut out the engine hatches and made removable ones from 1mm styrene.  These are based on the ones in the Trent kit and have a coaming underneath which also acts as a former for the deck curve.  I just need to add some thin spacers now to account for the variation in thickness of the deck moulding - so nearly there.   After the filling, it'll be on to fitting the side steps.

I've been slightly scatter gun with the build.  During the last fews weeks I've been on the transom bar and some of the fittings.  More on these later...