Been away on holiday for a few weeks so not been doing much but back at it again -

Pulley blocks
The mast has a small pulley block on each end of the cross bar, but I wanted to have a go at making them so using some 0.5mm I marked out the profile and then bent the flat pieces into a channel this was followed by drilling an 8BA clearance hole through both sides. Next I machined the centre pulley out of brass with a 2mm rad to suit the rope I will be using; I also did an extra round dummy pulley in steel to use as the template to file the radius on the frame and use as a guide for the width of the block. Using a smooth file I carefully filed the radius on each piece using the dummy pulley as a guide and trimmed the width, this was followed using wet and dry paper to finish. To fasten the blocks to the cross bar they need a screw fastening on the top, this was done by soldering an 8BA nut on the top. Finally the brass pulley wheel was secured in place with an 8BA nut and bolt, with a threaded stud in the top.


Deck rigging screw eyes - can be bought, but again, I had to have a go, so first I ground a tool to form the end ball which would also part the piece off after it had been turned and threaded. The bar was turned down to the thread o/d and then using an 8BA die the diameter was threaded. I then used the form tool to produce the ball end, this worked OK but could be improved on as the final turned finish wasn’t as good as I’d hoped for, but I don’t have time to spend on this as I only wanted six eyes so the diameters will be finished with a small file and wet and dry. Turned pieces finished, next I set up a gang of slitting saws to mill the flats, holding each part in a split threaded clamp in the machine vice the flats were milled in parallel. Finally using the same clamp jig the ball was drilled with a 2mm hole again to suit the 2mm rope. There’s some final dressing to do before the parts are clear lacquered.

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On the cabin roof is the radio aerial, the kit supplies a base in white metal, but to accommodate my aerial design I decided to machine my own out of brass. I wanted the pole to be tapered and with it being only 2mm dia I found the easiest way was to support the piece in a wooden block at the same height as the Dremel laid flat on the bench. With the piece rotating, I used a smooth file and grades of wet & dry to taper down to 0.75 dia. Next I machined the 2mm end down to 1.5mm to accept the spring, this spring will be soldered to a lower piece which then goes through the base and into the cabin where it’s bolted in position. I decided to incorporate a spring to make sure it does not get accidently bent.
Soft soldering was chosen, as the silver solder would have tempered the spring. The result was really better than I could have imagined.

Loud Hailer
Another heavy item, first job hollow out with the Dremel and then fill with polystyrene and top with Milliput and sculpt the shape –result, the weight was halved. Next I made a frame in the same way as the one I did for the search light – (see search light)

All the cabin furniture has to be mounted on the roof which is curved! I found the best way was to use Milliput. The method was as follows,
1 Drill the hole for each item in the appropriate place
2 Make sure the fastening method for each piece will hold the piece upright (I tapped the hole 8BA)
3 Make a dividing piece from PTFE baking sheet circular for most items but oblong for the mast feet
4 Roughen the surface where the items contact the cabin roof
5 Place the divider on the items base
6 Mix a small amount of Milliput
7 Place a circular amount under each item
8 put some Vaseline on the securing bolt so it doesn’t stick
9 Pull the item down to the desired height and fasten in position then trim around the bases
10 When dry remove the item and the baking sheet, paint as required
11 sorry if this is common knowledge

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The supplied mast is of white metal and although OK it has a number of minus points for me.
1- The mast does not lend its self to being hinged.
2- It really needs navigation light on top and the supplied casting is not suitable for this.
3- wiring needs to be hidden, not easy with the casting
4- it’s quite heavy
Having said all that it’s ok if you don’t want my wish list. So on with the manufacture of a replica, I chose brass as the preferred material because it’s easy to silver and soft solder.
The main legs are made from 6mm round tube, which I squeezed in my machine vice to an oval shape to look like the castings, each of the ends were then squeezed again at 90 degrees to allow then to join to the cross mid-section. I made some brass inserts for the hinged end from 2mm brass sheet, which are bent by 25 degrees to allow the hinge mechanism to sit at 90 degrees to the cabin roof, these are drilled and tapped 8BA. These pieces actually block the end of the oval tube and need to have a 2mm slot milled in them to allow the wires to exit the tube; these are soft soldered in place later. Two feet were made from two pieces of 2mm brass plate the base plate being slotted to accept the upright and finally silver soldered together.
(A point here for silver soldering is to use as little solder as possible and allow it to flow with the heat around the joint this means that no filing is needed. I find it’s also good practice to quench the part when nearly cool to break the glass like residue of the flux then just steel wool is required to clean the parts).
The feet upstands were then drilled 8BA clearance and the base fixing holes drilled the same size. The cross mid-section is made from 1mm brass sheet and is bent through 360 degrees whilst placing a 6mm round bar in the centre to create a hole for the top mast. A small wooden former was used as the piece was pressed together in the machine vice, this was then silver soldered to give stability and then filed to shape. This piece has to accommodate the wires passing through, so again a 2mm slot is milled from each leg location to the centre to create passage up to the top mast. The top mast is just stock tubing which then has a turned top with four 5mm holes machined at 90 degrees to accommodate the LED. This is a 5mm Flat top wide angle LED this will direct the light out of the four holes. Finally the cross piece, again stock tube with small ball finials at each end soft soldered in place and tapped 10 BA for the pulley blocks.
All pieces now made, it’s time to assemble the parts using a combination of soft soldering and epoxy resin. The wire that I used was silicon sheaved, and when I soldered the legs to the mid-section and lower hinge piece I made sure there was enough wire to pull through to check if the process had damaged the wire, but it hadn’t. So having soldered the LED, the top was epoxied to the upper tube and the tube epoxied to the mid-section. Finally the mid-section was filled using Milliput but first putting some Vaseline on the wires to avoid them being stuck should I ever have to rewire the unit. Next the cross beam was added and epoxied in place. The bottom of the legs looked plain compared with the cast version so I have made some thin gauge brass covers with mock bolts as per the original. The whole assembly was cleaned up ready for a first coat of etch primer, and white primer, followed later with a final coat of appliance white

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Servo mount
I have looked and better looked for a decent servo mount but could not find one that suited the position I wanted to put the servo, so I decide to make my own. I bought some aluminium channel, which would act as a platform and base for the standard servo. Space in terms of height is at a premium and so some material had to be removed from the keel area to make sure the servo arms did not catch on the underside floor of the rear deck. As the space tapers in height from stern>forward then the best position for the servo would be next to the forward bulkhead

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I had from the beginning I had intended to hold all the hatches down with Neodymium magnets however as you work on, these things seem to get forgotten, so now it’s time to do some of the not so exiting tasks. I had bought some 10 x 5x 1.5 magnets so I need to machine the slots into the roof cabin quadrants. These needed to be mirrored by a quadrant that can be epoxied into the corners of each cabin area. Using the trusty Lidl disc sander I produced 12 quadrants and then after making a simple jig to hold them in place I machined the corresponding slot in each one taking note of left and right hand variants. The next job is to glue all the magnets into the roof spaces and then when they are set glue the magnets into the quadrants making sure the orientation is correct. To make sure the magnets are set into the cabin sides at the correct depth I made a temporary balsa wood frame around each cabin to rest the quadrants on while they set.
Another small job complete

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Cabin detail part 6 panel light
The panel light presented a difficult challenge in that I assume the real one has a tubular light fitting in it, difficult in 1/12 scale. However, creating the tube assembly was not difficult using some annealed 1/8” brass tube and making a bending jig, (simply a 1/8 grove milled using a ball ended slot drill into a piece of hardwood I formed the tube into the required shape. I used the back of the jig to hold the piece while I filled the tube half way through along it top inside edge @ 45 degrees this is where the LED tube will fit. The LED tube is from one of the new type LED garden light bulb that use a small solar panel to illuminate it during the during dark hours. Smashing the bulb leaves 4 filaments which can be used independently, these are very delicate and need the wires attaching very carefully finally feeding it into the brass tube and then after all this fiddling, if it still lights, epoxy it in place. The next job is to make some brackets to fix it to the instrument panel. The bracket was made from 1/8” bore tube and some 0.010” brass shim I drilled some holes in the sheet prior to cutting to size, this was done using only a 1/8” dia centre drill and then enlarged with a clock makers reamer until the tube fitted snugly through this was then soft soldered in place. The whole unit was then epoxied in place on the instrument panel. All the wiring for the panel LEDs can now be completed ready for connection to the random flashing circuit board. (this came as a kit for just £3:90) The circuit board is fastened to the panel with a sub-board made from a scrap piece of ply with PCB supporting pillars in the corners, when this is completed I will post a video of it working.
The LEDs on the circuit board are only for testing and will be replaced with the panel LEDs.

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Cabin detail part 5 speed control & compass
The speed control has two main throttle controls presumably to operate the engines independently. The construction of this piece made it easy to allow each arm to operate independently but to ensure that the levers had some stiffness in the travel I incorporated a spring into the centre screwed shaft. I machined some detail into the body and a recess in each end face to accommodate a dial (AHEAD, ASTERN, STOP, SLOW etc). The circular body needed something to stand on so I made a cradle, which will support it when it is screwed to the framework. I left the whole unit in natural brass, lacquered it to stop any tarnishing, and mounted it with an 8BA screw to hold it in position.
The compass again a simple turned piece of brass with a recess machined into the top face to accept a N,S,E,W compass dial. This item is simply glued in the recess on the console.

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The steering wheel is a simple 3-spoke design; first, I machined a ring and a centre boss in brass. I then made a wooden jig to hold the parts in the correct position whilst soldering, this consisted of a turned block with a recess to locate the O/D, and the taper towards the centre hole to give a “dish effect” that locates the centre boss. This just leaves the three arms to machine; these are cut using a slitting saw to cut a 3mm wide strip from a piece of 1.5 mm brass plate. These are the cut to length ready for soft soldering and then the parts are all cleaned and placed in the jig, ideally a minimum of solder is used to minimise cleaning afterwards. The finishing/fettling I find is always easier if you use a sharp craft knife to slice any excess solder away as it doesn’t easily mark the brass in the same way you might using Swiss files, finally finish with 600 and 1000 w&d before priming ready for topcoat of black gloss. The first wheel I decided was too small so the pics are of that construction; the final larger wheel is in the last 3 pictures

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After the Christmas break its back to the cabin to finish some of the instrument detail. You may recall I detailed the cockpit with some ply constructions to represent the general layout; I also intend to detail the compass, throttle controls, steering wheel, panel lighting, and instrument panel.
The instrument panel was copied and scaled from various drawing and pictures and I came up with a three-panel unit where panels 1 & 3 are identical as they are for the two-engine managements system the centre panel deals with electrical things. I intend to make the panel out of 1.5 mm aluminium cut to size on the guillotine I then attached this to a hardwood block with some strong double sided tape this will be more than strong enough to hold the piece for the drilling/light milling operation. I worked out the hole positions using an absolute datum (same as CNC work, if only I was still working) This does take some time using my rather old milling machine making sure any backlash is taken out during the 28 linear movements. I used various sizes of centre drills to produce the holes as they give not only accurate size but also perfectly round holes on thin material and the only ones that needed to be a particular size (6mm dial holes) the others are for switches and LEDs which can all be a 3 mm location hole. Each hole was drilled and then chamfered to simulate a bezel on the dials. Finally, I milled a shallow groove (2mm x 0.3 deep) to simulate the separate panels. I have copied a number of different marine dials from the internet and using PowerPoint I aligned in a complete group and then printed and laminated them, this will be placed behind the aluminium plate using double-sided tape.
Having fixed the dials in place I drilled through the holes where LEDSs will fit. The LEDs will be shortened and polished so they are flat to the face; these are then stuck in place. Next, I made all the switches from brass bar with a fine brass pin glued across its face to simulate the lever. These were painted gloss black and the centre pin picked out in red, they were then glued into the 3 mm location hole. The black knobs/pull switches were turned out of black Perspex and polished; they were then glued into the location holes. The whole instrument panel is then pinned on to the wooden framework which has been left in natural wood finish (ply) as it looks like the original boat was just a varnished ply finish.

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The rear deck has a few features that need to be done to finish the deck.
1) The hatch part needs the magnets putting in to hold it in place, which requires the deck to be milled out to accept the magnets. Having milled the recess out in both the base and the hatch in four places the magnets can be epoxied in the base. Now these have been set in place the upper magnets can be placed on top of the base magnets to get the correct orientation and glued in place, but I made sure to place some silicon baking paper between the magnets so they don’t accidently get stuck together (with epoxy).
2) The handles and recess to lift the decks out have to be milled out. Using a 2 mm slot drill I cut a 10mm x 5mm 1.5 mm deep recess in 4 places. Each recess has two holes drilled in the corners to accept the brass handles which will be epoxied in later
3) There are two drains at the rear of the deck. These were made from a machined piece of tube, which had vee groves milled in one end to accept a 1.5 mm brass rod in each, which were then soldered in place. After some cleaning up of the excess solder the underside was filled in using epoxy resin coloured black (with Graphite) to simulate a dark hole. The ends were then machined flat, polished, and finally epoxied into the deck.
4) Finally the foam tanks need to be secured, once again using round magnets this time , they are sunk into the deck and similarly the opposing magnets are sunk into the base of each foam tank, this gives a real sturdy fastening the tanks jump into position as soon as they are placed near their position.
5) The deck has had a number of clear lacquer coats during manufacture so now for a couple of final coats.

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