Having burnt the midnight oil for the past two months 😑 Bill and I have been taking a rest and catching up with all the mundane jobs we have been Ignoring 😊 . The next stage will be to:
Finish the deck fittings;
Make and install the railings 😟 ;
Complete the mast rigging;
Identify the correct lifeboat placement for the Olympic - Double stacked but how?
Install the rest of the lighting in cabins, on decks;
Complete the lighting control mechanisms;
Install all the windows;
Install the motors, ESC's and Radio;
Check the ballast in the test tank - to allow for all the fittings added;
Launch for maiden voyage 😀
Not a lot then!
Bill and Dave

The arrival of BST also gave us a beautiful warm and calm day 😓 . Olympic, still in its unfinished state, was launched at about 1pm having taken on the 70kg of battery and lead ballast 😀 . The motors all worked and sailing for a short circuit took place. The transmitter was then fine tuned 😉 to the model and I sailed around the lake until about 4.30pm. it is clear that the 777 motors and the small Buhler whilst having plenty of power, are not really suitable. 😟 The large coarse pitch props really need a nice low rev high tork motor. At one time this would have been the 555 😀 sold by Model Motors direct but that supply has dried up. I'll be speaking the Alistair Graham tomorrow to see whats on offer.There was a very small amount of water in the rear hull. 😟 This has entered via the small portholes just above the waterline at the rear. I will have to fill these with some clear epoxy resin to seal. We did identify that this may happen plus the shaft stuffing boxes need packing as some weeping was evident. For a first run this was really good. 😀 The model looked superb on the water and the unfinished state is not obvious. Bill attended to help with the launch and being a nice day there were plenty of spectators. Fireboat attended with his dad Peter and sailed his superb Fireboat 👍

Replaced all motors with 555 Mk2 supplied by Alastair at Model Motors Direct. Control is now realistic and scale speed is easily achieved 😉 .
Titanic was due to sail today also but due to a technical fault ( Battery & Transmitter left at home 😰 ) this did not happen. it was on display though 😀 .
Olympic still has much work to be undertaken but the lights are now fully functional on the hull and Titanic will be fully wired this week.Four independent 317 IC controllers are used to supply the 3mm and 5mm LEDS on each side. I can adjust the brightness to balance the 3mm with 5mm and bought a remote LED dimmer from Component Shop which feeds the four ICs allowing for fine control to suit the ambient light. This also has an on/off switch so no need to remove the top deck to make adjustments, For display purposes a 3 way switch allows port or starboard light to be selected and a further switch allows for all lights to be on. 😎

Each model needs 50Kg of lead as well as the 20Kg battery. Not surprisingly this is not an easy task as the model need to be in the water before any ballast is loaded. My ballast is carried in two ply boxes with a dowel handle. I can carry one in each hand or put both on a wheeled trolley. The battery can also be carried or taken on the trolley. All the ballast is numbered to ensure it is fitted in the correct location.
The superstructure is carried in a large ply box with lid. The main centre section fits along the base and the fore and aft decks are held attached to the sides of the box. A lid then closes the box and is held with two catches.
I obtained some 1" flat luggage straps and adjustable fittings and these allow me to carry the box.

To control the LED's in the hull sides I have installed four LM317 voltage controllers, two for each side. This is necessary as I am using 5mm and 3mm ultra bright LED's and they have different current requirements. As we display often against a wall or background it is useful to be able to control which side is Illuminated and at the same time allow for both sides. This is achieved by using two two way switches, one to select a side and the other to select both sides. I set the LEDs up by adjusting a trim pot on each controller to give a good bright light of identical brightness on each side. I have restricted the controllers to give a variable voltage up to the max allowed for the LEDs.
The supply to both controllers is fed from the main battery via a remote LED dimmer duly fused. This works brilliantly as the lights can be controlled remotely and dimmed to suit the ambient light level.
The current per side varies from about 70Ma to 100Ma so full lights on both sides use 200 Ma at 12v Ie less than 3w.
My main problem is shorts occuring in the hull wiring usually where the fore and aft decks are fitted. I have yet to find the best solution but have fitted 500Ma fuses in the feed to each set of lights so that I can resolve problems before fitting the superstructure. A LED across each fuse will light if the fuse is blown.
The pictures show the rear control panel mounted above the motors.The LED dimmer is mounted underneath this panel. The three ESC's can be seen with the two LED control switches above the receiver. The 317IC circuit board can be seen below the croos deck former. The lights are connected between the hulls with some ribbon cable and a plug and socket.

Work continues with fitting out the details. There is an abundance of railings all round the fore and aft decks together with rails round most of the structures on the boat deck. Bill favours making his own stanchions from litho cut and punched but I chose to use scale link etchings. We used fine musical wire for the railings superglued in place. Positions marked in pencil from the plan directly onto the deck edge. I used a 0.6mm drill in a small battery operated (Aldi) drill to make the holes for the stanchions, which were fixed with a dab of thick superglue. When all in place the thin wire was threaded through the holes and finally fixed with another dab of thin superglue to each wire/stanchion junction. Slow but satisfying work. Finally when all dry I applied an almost dry coat of white acrylic to the railings. This is work in progress and final finishing is required to straighten and Irregular runs and apply a final coat of paint before protecting with clear varnish. For consistency I will need to paint all the railings at the same time.

Added photo to ensure correct pic on booklet 😀

I have continued to add more fixtures and fittings on an ad-hoc basis mainly due to other commitments but mainly due to a lack of space indoors to work on the assembled model. The recent spell of fine weather has allowed for several days of outside work so progress has been good.
There are a number of winches and davits that needed to be made and fitted. I made some masters and cast with fastcast. The drums were turned from brass.
The docking deck and wheelhouse contain telegraphs etc and these were made from turned brass rod. As before I made sufficient to supply the Olympic and Titanic.

The outside window detail was copied from the plans and transferred to overhead projector film and printed using a laser jet. Each window was cut just around the printed detail and fixed to the correct window using clear canopy glue. The water jet cut windows are consistent size so everything matched up perfectly. Took three days to print/ cut and fit all the windows.
The catlines up the fore and aft masts were drafted onto a sheet of paper which was pasted to a piece of wood. Nails were used to secure the verticals and the horizontals were made by cutting slots in the wood and wrapping cotton into and round the wood. White canopy glue was used to paste all over having waxed the template to protect the jig. When dry I used a sharp knife to cut off the surplus leaving some nice relatively self supporting ratlines.
As I sail the model rigging needs to be easily removable. For fore and aft running lines I attach small springs which clip to hoops at deck level. All other mast rigging is fixed to each mast and I have used small berylium (ex brushless motors) magnets superglued to the bulwarks. A small metal tab attached to each line can then be place over the appropriate magnet and adjusted to tension.
The aerials run from fore to aft and I used shirring elastic as this keeps everything nice and tight and is self adjusting as the temperature and humidity changes.

The poop deck, B deck and Boat deck contain bench seats. Of a typical Victorian design with scrolled Iron ends. I was fortunate to find a friend in Gordon Brooks who helped me prepare a CAD file which was submitted to an etching firm and gave me excellent results. I have added some benches but more need making. The Mahogany slats are made from some thin veneer cut into very thin strips then superglued to the etchings in a small jig. Another etching completes the bench by adding the central seat support.
The end result looks OK but I would like to perfect a method of making the slats more to scale.
As well as the bench ends the etching also includes many 5 bar stanchions as the scale link I originally used were only 3 rail.