With the end of the build of the Coromandel in sight the question has been what to do next. Building model boats I think, is a bit of an addiction and when you are retired it gives you something to think about and the hours spent in the garage/shed in silence, with only your thoughts are very relaxing and I would recommend to all.

The garage is much more comfortable at this time of year and is the time to get the dirty work done.

After doing two electrical powered boats with all the battery charging activities, I have been taken, when watching those with sail powered models, with the time that is spent by them in actually sailing the boat I thought that that should be the next project.

I spent some time looking at the various kits and ready built models available but these do not require very much effort in getting to the sailing bit.

So my attention turned to the source of many of the models on this site, e-bay. After watching for a few weeks something that looked like a good start came up, a timber built yacht hull, not too far away for collection only. When I bid I did not really know what is was, as it was made as a static display, but as it sold at the starting bid price 99 p. I was not going to loose much if it ended up in the dustbin.

At first I was very Impressed with the item as it was built on frames and planked, I think with bambo. I expect that it was made some where in the far east and is about 48 inches long. it was obviously not water tight as there were small gaps in some places between the planks, but I thought that the solution to that was to remove the deck and line and reinforce the interior with glass fibre and resin. After removing the deck and the various bits of detail, I found that unfortunately the inside had been coated with a considerable amount of " white stuff" which looks like emulsion paint or poor quality PVA glue which I do not think will be a satisfactory surface on which to bond the fibre glass.

So what to do, my thoughts are to remove the planking ( the glue is not very strong ) to sand off all, or most of the white stuff and try and put it all together again. if this fails clean the frames and fit new planking.

If anyone has any better ideas I would be grateful for their advice.

I have attached some pics of it at present

A bit of an update on progress so that the story does not get too far behind.

I have now removed the planking from the Port side as said below.

I have attached pics of hull with the top planking removed, I am going to leave planking on keel and pin using panel pins and cover outside with glass fibre/resin.

At last I have finished the re planking. This has turned out to be a longer task than anticipated, but now it is done I am gaining some satisfaction from the start of the recovery of the model.

I intially tried to replank with the intention of varnishing the timber planks, so held planks in place with rubber bands, this resulted in only being able to fit a single plank at a time. As it became obvious, that due to the loss of some planks on removal, this was not viable, I reverted to pinning the strips to the formers and removing the pins when the glue had dried.

It is necessary to use some filler in positions where the old planks have been damaged and for some reason some of the planks are a bit short now.

After lining the inside with glass fibre I cut out some of the solid formers using a circular saw, a bit of a hairy experience and a lot of sawdust.

a few pics as it is now, next task is to fit floor to cut out area and refit deck, but first is to learn a bit more about model yachts and where the holes in the deck should be as once it is on there will no way to get it off again.

Thanks Dave for your last comments I have a tackle shop quite near and have used it but will have to look for shark bits.

I have now attached old deck to rest of hull and finished adding filler to all the Imperfections, as the old deck had heavy scribe lines for planking I have fitted upside down and will plank with individual mahogany 1 mm by
8 mm strips.

I have installed the sail winch and aluminium tubes, to run the control line for and aft through brass grommets on the deck.

From my brother in law's vast store of fishing rods ( obtained from numerous car boot sales ) he has supplied me with a suitable glass fibre tapered tube for a mast.

A few pics attached as it is now.

Thanks very much for your comments and your reference to the J class and subsequent research has changed my course of action.

I was thinking of making it a vintage Marblehead, but it is fairly obvious that the model was originally a J class and although it was a static model, its length of 119.5 cms fits it into the size required.Also when I first obtained it the deck works were in keeping with this class, various cabins and a lot of winches.

I have attached some pics of boat now that deck is planked and my scheme for a variable mast position, this will now be altered to a fixed mast as I intend to make it a sort of J class, I do not want to limit myself too much as it is only intended to be for amusement.

I have so far only done a bit of research, so have a number of points to resolve. I do not now want to use a torpedo keel ballast, so will have to look into a lead cast block and probably cut off some of the existing timber keel structure.

Another problem will be the rudder, if I try and fit one like the original, as this has a tilted axis this will be difficult to do now that I have fitted the deck, what I might do is to fit a fixed blade to the keel and fit a removalable fin one when sailing.

I also have a problem now with fitting the control line on the centre line of the boat, but this is what model building is about, SOMETHING TO KEEP THE MIND ACTIVE.

I have been following Dave M's progress on his Bristol cutter, as I am contemplating similar problems with the yacht.

I have not progressed much on my build, but have done a lot of research on the J Class and have come to the conclusion to try and reproduce one particular boat, this will resolve the name problem but gives rise to others.

As far as I can determine all 10 of the J class boats were different as far as their deck arrangements were concerned and not much information is available on the various details. So as I wanted to construct a uk designed and built boat and one that had a lot of photographs on the web, I have decided on the Velsheda.

The Velsheda has 2 inset

My last post got a bit messed up and some was left off so here is part 2.

The Velsheda has 2 inset cockpits that are inserted through the deck so I shall have similar sealing problems to Dave's so I shall be interested in how he resolves them. The J Class boats seem to spend a lot of their time in a very tilted mode with part of the deck under water, I am going to restrict the height of the sail rig to make it more manageable.

On a yacht blog site I have seen,there is a lot of worry about casting lead, with the respect to water in the mould and the need to get the C of G as low as possible, I shall revert to my original scheme of a detachable torpedo ballast cast in a metal tube.

At last a bit of progress to report. it has taken some time to design and make the various deck structures, the attached pics show the bits all made from 2 mm ply.

There are a lot of glazed windows on the Valsheda, so I thought a good method of making the multiple units is to cut the complete window outline and to make the glazing from 2 mm perspex, to glue these in initially with double sided tape, as used by dress makers and when fitted to apply a generous coat of epoxy resin over all the outside surfaces thus providing a fillet of adhesive between the perspex and the timber frame. The intermediate glazing bars then being glued to the perspex. in this way thin glazing bars can be fitted and the glue does not extrude around the frame. A further coat of epoxy resin is then applied over all the assembly.

The rudder servo and linkages have been modified in order that the rudder can be removed for transport, this being held in place by a turned brass tube nut which represents the binnacle in the stern cockpit.

At present the two cabin and cockpit assemblies are removeable from the deck so the problems of overcoming the leakage into the hull still have to be resolved, the most likely solution will be to seal the main cabin assembly to the deck with silicone sealant, but as the aft assembly will require to be removable, some more thought will be required.

Twin winches for sail control have been fitted, these are made from 6 volt motor gearbox units fitted with drums. The intention is to run the sail sheets round the drums with the tension being provided by elastic bands housed in aluminium tubes running for and aft.

It has been a very long time since I did any thing to the Valsheda I had reached a stage where I had to do something difficult so it has sat there for close on 18 months. I have also become very in volved with the Bristol Aero Collection that now takes up a lot of my time restoring various bits of guided weapon equipment.

Any how thats my excuse, the bit I did not want to do was to fit the strips along the top edges of the deck, eventually I got the dremel out and fitted a 1.5 mm drill and drilled a lot of holes in the strips and then marked through to the deck and retained with panel pins. Then took them all out and refitted using epoxy glue and put the pins the whole way in. Then repainted the deck and strips with 2 part epoxy varnish. The heads of the pins are not flush in all cases so I will have to do a bit of careful fileling. Eventually I intend to cover the strips with the same colour as the hull.

I attach a few pictures as she is with the various deck fittings, next job is to make the mast and various rigging.

Now back in harness am begining to make some progress.

This is to manufacture the mast and rigging. The mast is made from a piece of fishing rod, it is a bit big and out of scale but is quite robust and I am not trying to make a true scale boat.

The spreaders are made from 1/8 thick aluminium sheet and are once again not true to scale but are quite strong and make fitting to slots in the mast a bit stronger.

In order to fit and glue the spreaders in the mast I made a jig to ensure that all were held in alignment during the fitting and glueing process this is shown in attached pics.

Since my early contributions on this subject I find the Improvements to this site are very Impressive and those involved in all the work that has been done deserve our great thanks and a bit of a contribution to the pot to cover the costs.