Leave a Light On

After about 18 months of um-ing and ar-ing, I've tackled the small lights in the front of the wheelhouse though they're not working!

On the actual boats, these lights are in small recesses whereas they are etched parts in relief on the the kit.  I couldn't be sure that in making the recesses, I could get them to match the etched parts.  So I gave up on the idea and painted the wheelhouse.  It then dawned on me that I'd been daft and didn't need use the kit's etched parts!

So, for that reason and a couple of others, I bit the bullet and resigned myself to a respray.  The other issues were that the hole I'd drilled for the mast servo linkage was made before I built the mast.  That meant it was on the assumption that the mast arches are square and not that they widened towards the bottom.  Also, the joint of the vent boxes and the USP floor could  have been improved.

So here's a pic of the light recesses roughly, a little too roughly, drilled

and here's the finished job post respray.  The lights are lenses for model cars.

Mast(erbalster) part 4

This time I've been doing more work to the mast.

I've made the H aerial using various bits of styrene, aluminium tube and brass rod.  On the basis that a picture speaks a thousand words...

Before...                                              

and after

The lights all work too.  I've made up a circuit board to run separate circuits for the cabin lighting, navigation lighting and SIMS screen.  I'll post about that board in a future post.  Also, A fellow club member made a couple of small circuit boards up for me so that the blue and orange lights flash separately.

So, here's a picture showing all the lights on, which caught the blue and orange ones on.  I'm both relieved and impressed that he wiring inside the mast still works!

Never Mind the Bollards

This is a post of old and new.  I made the bow and stern bollards and the capstan some time ago, but didn't think they justified a post on their own.  Still here they are;

Made as per the kit instructions from the supplied plastic tube and nice photo-etch for the bases.

The bollards on each side took a little more thinking about.  That's because the stern pair are larger and possible squatter than the forward pair; so the kit parts will be used for the latter.  After some head starching, I bought a pair of 1/12 bollards from Model Slipway's lifeboat parts range and set about them with my saw!  So. I cut the tops of each one and cut a section out of the base.  Before and after below;

I then cut out the brace between each pair of bollards.  The shortened bases were then glued back together and I made new braces and tops for each bollard from plasticard.  Here's the results;

Hopefully, I'll not leave it too long before posting again!

I'm Back

Indeed I am and with more metalwork in my hand!  I've parked the radar for the time being and have been working on other things.  I spent a long time trying to paint the hull - my stand kept marking the hull resulting in several sessions of rubbing it back.  Ultimately, stripped the whole lot back and started again using a new primer from a MBM Forum member recommendation.  Here's a pic - I've not bee brave enough to put it on a stand yet though!

One casualty has been the bilge keel extensions in that they broke and will have to be remade.  I've also found that the floor of the Y boat recess is slightly off centre, so that will need work.  It must have been when I remade it a while back.

Aside from that, all I've done is make up the whip aerial brackets.  The etch parts with the kit are lovely but I wanted to be able to raise and lower the aerials, at least by hand but there's no east way of doing that with the etched parts.  So I made some styrene replacements;

There are slots through which small tabs attached to each mast will pass which can then be pinned in place.  On the real boat, the pins are spring loaded and pulled by a cord from below.  My pins will have to go in from the top though!