Doug, you're wrong on several counts, but never mind, I'm banging my head against the wall and, like you I can take it. Only this time, I'll stay away.
mturpin, if your 6 year old can decipher ----, then he already knows as much as most 6 year olds, but hey if he's easily offended, I'll leave you all to it.

Martin

Nah, still won't let me speak.🤔 (Expletive deleted😎)
I think model boats magazine forum still exists, but that was always very stuffy.
No, I'll stick with this and Modelshipworld, although since they had a big crash even that august place seems somehow emasculated. Too much non marine stuff. Airfix aeroplanes and that sort of thing.
I did try to start a FB group for my kind of speedboats, but nobody ever contributed, so I dumped it.

Martin

Roy,
I'll try to log in once more, but as there's no way to contact them I shall just do what I always end up doing with forums, leave! (Expletive deleted😎) I always end up doing it my way anyway, I just like to help people save time and money if I can and help them enjoy the hobby more.
But, in answer to your question, I cannot get interested in warships of any era whatever and tugs, coasters, liners. You could say ships generally. Just too big and Nelson's stick and string collection drives me nuts. Too much to know.
My interests are the inshore sailing craft of Gt. Britain and Ireland and mahogany classic speedboats. I think people are scared of the latter because a superb finish is essential. And if you can't work metal, forget it. That is as essential. I love both and can do both. I just wanted to and practiced. Pretty obvious really! The former? What's not to love? Variety, localness, almost all are beautiful, static or working models, small enough to build biggish and still transport, so nice detail. Yet you rarely see a Thames Bawley, a Galway Hooker or a Northumberland Coble. A Shetland Sixareen Or a Leigh Peter Boat. Even the names are redolent of the sea. I was hooked by reading Edgar March's two volumes on the topic. But I can never find anything. I suppose because in the recent times, where there's a less and less likely chance someone has actually scratchbuilt anything, they select a damned warship, not a far more interesting and developed local craft. It never seems to occur to them that they might actually finish something smaller! And they can do a small collection where every model is very different from the next, whereas Nelson Stick and stringery all looks very similar, ugly even!

Martin

Oh dear. It says "user does not exist" Which is odd since right at the top it says Hello Goldcupper.
Oh well, obviously been a bad boy at some point. Always happens sooner or later
Martin

I often see the above kit mentioned on groups, but it's always wood, laser cut looking at the black edged bits of ply, yet the one Amati Riva kit I've seen and was paid to build for display was the biggest, nastiest piece of resin I've ever seen! Filled at the factory with what appeared to be Polyfilla, mis-shapen and generally foul. I had to spend hours putting that right before I veneered it in Swiss pear to look like mahogany in scale.
I'm wondering when they changed from the ugly lump to laser cut wood. Anybody know for sure?
The photo-etch was crap too! had a finish more like galvanising that bright nickel plate!

Martin

Hi all, I tried getting back on Model Boat Mayhem after a long absence. Not because I don't like it here, but because they have a bit more activity on the kind of boats I like, but although I've signed in and updated my password and it calls me by my user name, I can't leave replies. Has anyone else had this problem or have I been banned? Wouldn't surprise me, but I can't remember such things. I don't want to join RCGroups as it's too American, even though they do like their mahogany Hotrods. But nobody seems to do vintage yachts and inshore craft. And I ONLY do those categories.
Martin

Ron, I HATE balsa! I only use it in model aircraft when I have to! Leading and trailing edges, maybe the odd spar, but I hate its unreliable grain and imprecise nature.
To me that precariously balance blow torch in the hot pipe method is a no-no! My blow torch is a big devil on a couple of metres of orange hose, not something I can rest up against a pipe. I shall have a play with Spruce and then some ash when I can get it back from my daughter's place.

Martin

Well, I'm up late I'm afraid as I don't want to wake my wife who needs to keep her feet up later than most, so I do breakfast, check emails and notifications on FB, then check this forum and modelshipworld. Then household chores and maybe shopping. Then lunch and then I manage a few hours in the workshop. So-called lockdown has made no difference to my routine whatever, except I'm not dragged off to KFC or the burger van any more! These days with longer daylight, if the weather's good I'm outside doing my Vanity model or running my slot track, under which Vanity lives!

Martin

I couldn't use hot pipe, too risky inside a house. White oak (any kind of oak) too coarse a grain, but ash will do. Somebody elsewhere suggested spruce. We can get spruce in hobby sizes and I'm thinking if it dioes bend well, then a 4"wide sheet of spruce 1/8" thick could be the answer as the strange shapes required for a clinker boat would come out of a 4" wide sheet whereas an 1 1/4" wide piece (of ash) wouldn't allow the shape. I must see if SLEC stock spruce.

Martin

Depenjds when, Bill. When I bought mine they were a very reasonable (even then) £25 each more or less, but of course Proxxon stuff is massively overpriced purely because of the name, but the table saaw in that lot is exactly the same as the Abest my wife just bought me. God knows what the scroll saw cost, yet my son has a Hobbies saw that cost him very little in a charity shop and a new Ferm which was about 30 quid. I would still use it if I could get the batch reasonably, but I put in a decent bid and it was immediately raised by 2 quid, so I'm bowing out. Of all the bits there I would like the disc sander, as mine just vanished in a move. I have my son's big SIP machine, but I risk injury every time I pick it off the floor and it's in the way. But I can get a new tilt table disc sander of a small kind for 60 quid, so may do that. Can't find any second hand ones on ebay. But thanks for the link anyway.
Martin

Bill, some of the tools I've had and lost are in that selection. I may see about bidding as that is quite near where I live!

Martin

Gents, I had completely forgotten the steaming qualities of ash. And, hanging ion the rafters of my old shed, in my daughter's garden are several lengths of ash that I originally bought to make a new frame for my Austin 7 Special's bodywork, not eventually built as the landlady insisted I get rid of the caravan which was my storage. I kept the ash, so it looks like I'll be dragging the table saw (the big one) out one fine day and ripping the ash into 1/8th" strips. Thanks for all the help, folks.

Martin

Fair point. My sailing will mainly be done on a canalised river (no flow) up the end of my road. No model boat clubs near enough to travel to. Only ponds are Sheringham and Norwich, both a day trip, so I'm expecting unhelpful winds on my local river (Well Creek). But, at least I can access both sides of the river thanks to a tiny bridge over it. There's also a slipway, so I can get safely to the water's edge. However, I couldn't bring my self to installing a motor in Vanity. Nothing a long pole can't sort out!

Martin

Wow! Not a peep then loads at once! Thanks, chaps.
Martin555, I've read of those, but I don't like all the marks left on the wood and that's fairly thin wood. My planks will be around 5/8" wide and always at least 1/8" thick.
Roy, I asked this question in order to start experimenting with different woods. I would not expect Mahogany to bend very well, although the few bends I needed on Vanity were achieved with simple kettle steaming, although I used quite a lot of stealers in that hull, so I could stick to the supply I had of Cuban Mahogany from my Grandad's old dining chairs.
Peewit, I like your idea of finishing with a run of superglue. I've used that for hardening edges of hardboard when making cheap and nasty Vac-form pattern bases. I won't use pine as it's horrible irregular stuff. Beech however, appeals for its closer grain.
Ron, many thanks for all your links. I will go through and see what I can find there.
Newby7, this is for the future, but if I don't get flying again soon I shall go back to boats entirely and may start it sooner than I intended. I like to have more than one project on the go.
I wouldn't use oak because of its coarse grain and I hate oak anyway, having restored a full sized historic wooden canal boat into which my wife and I put 3 oak trees! Steaming a 10"x3"x 34 ft. 6" oak plank is a 5 hour job! But for exactly 7 minutes it's like chewing gum, then it sets solid! Did a whole new swim on our boat. 6 full planks with the last 18 feet in the steam chest, a 50 gallon drum of water for a boiler under which we burned all the old oak I'd removed from the boat.

Martin

Never mind that old stick and string thing, make the Yawl. Much prettier, much nicer to sail, I'm sure. To me, galleons are like WW1 triplanes and Veteran cars...the old crocks of any given interest. Can't bear them! Gimme a vintage sports car or a racing 'plane from the golden era anytime. Although where bikes are concerned it's the 50s caff racer that blows my frock up. If you have to add, "if it'll even work", I really don't want to know!

Martin

To do what samc needs to he needs no more than a cheapo Chinky bristle brush, epoxy (ideally, but other runny glues are available, like aliphatic resin) and a few clamps, which can be had in Poundshops.

Martin

A nice solid hull, peewit. I assume the heavy looking extended keel line is to save having an extra fin keel. I'm sure it should have been a clinker built hull to be a beach yawl. There was an article on Yarmouth Beach Yawls in an issue of Model maker and Model Boats magazine. I had it as a kid, but no longer, alas. But I remember it being a rather large, slightly tubby boat with many clinker strakes, but still a very nice shape, transom sterned.

I'd simply build that hull up as a yawl anyway and see how she sails. If she needs more ballast, then add a blade or fin and a bulb.

Good to see a non military sailing vessel being done.


Martin

Hi all,
even though the finishing of Vanity is a long way off, I am thinking of my next sailer and that has to be a Norfolk Wherry. Now since nobody has ever done a half decent GRP hiull of a wherry, I have to make one. I don't want an Albion as that was untypically carvel built. I shall do Gleaner, as that is the only wherry for which plans exist and that, like all the others, was clinker. I shall use 1/16th scale, so the 2" oak planks will be 1/8th" thick, which would require steaming to achieve the extreme twist at bow and stern, so my question is which kind of wood will steam the easiest to help with those bends?
Cheers,
Martin

One left? Grab it, Bill. You won't regret it.

Martin

Haha, I wondered that, but couldn't find proof, so i went for the Abest and what a fine little tool it is. I am VERY pleased with it. You won't find better for twice the price.

Martin

Well, I'm staggered...My dear lady ordered me a new Abest mini table saw at 6-57 last night and today it was delivered at 12-30! Unbelievable. All in perfect condition. I set it up and cut some bulwark planks with it which were a wee bit too wide thanks to fence creep on the old saw and the new one cut off a strip as thin as paper with a perfectly clean cut edge. It's quite a large case, but there's a power unit in there too. The set comes with a spare drive belt and even a pair of spare carbon brushes for the motor! A fence, an adjustable mitre fence, a vacuum cleaner nozzle and 2 different sized Allen keys. Because of the reduction via the belt there's bags of power. I am delighted. Very highly recommended for 53 quid, superb.

Martin

Well, Colin, let's hope you've helped find it a good home. It's not every house that can contain an A class or 10 rater, Indeed members used to leave them in the club houses, until the age of vandalism and mass theft. I remember looking inside Norwich's very fine clubhouse and it was a sea of huge yachts, all elegant, unlike the ugly stuff they race these days. The only excuse for a plumb stem is if it's a model of a Victorian cutter with a graceful stern! And as for "bustles"...where's that sick bag?...

Martin

Doug, that page on amazon is odd as the same tools (according to the photos) have prices all over the place! One of those Novelife saws is £22-22 and the others are 132! No real difference except the expensive one has three blades and shows a power unit, but there's a power unit with the cheap one too as far as I can see. I really don't want to buy Chinky stuff, but what choice do we have? That or Byrne's hand made and therefore way overpriced thing. Well, the memsahib has ordered me an Abest and we'll see what that's like. It seems it's RIP Mini/Maxicraft.

Ian, Proxxon is really no different from all the others, except for the over the top pricing. I have a Proxxon transformer and minidrill as it came in a very good deal 30 years ago. They're both still going, but the speed control on the drill packed in after a few weeks, so I just wired t straight through, so it's been flat out ever since! But it's just a "buggy" motor running in a ball race and so are all my other minitools that cost a fraction in Lidl or Aldi. OK, my wife bought me a Dremel recently and that's a mains powered tool. First Dremel I ever had and that was on a deal. Very quiet and powerful.

Martin

Martin

Doug, I looked at Squires, but they have the disc sander and NOT the tble saw. They even call it Minicraft. They also do the horribly expensive Bohler as Minitools. Way too much for me. If I could justify 300 for a Bohler I'd go the extra 100 and have a Byrne's!
We'll have to see what the Abest is like as that's now on order.

I'll check Micromark, Artlewis, but getting stuff from America could be awkward.

Martin

Has anyone heard what happened to Minicraft tools? Also known as Maxicraft as far as I could tell. They each used to cost around 25 quid and were great. But my mini table saw has just shit the bed after decades of satisfactory use, just as I want to cut gunnels and deck planks for Vanity, dammit!
Chris has bought me an Abest one from Amazon bless her, but it ain't 25 quid!

What do you all use?

Martin

Dipping's OK, but uses a lot of expensive epoxy. I would say brush it and encourage it into the delaminations, then flatten it with a good heavy weight like Doug's car battery or whatever you have, otherwise the delaminated frame/component will have re-glued, but will also have stayed fatter due to not being squashed to its original thickness, which will obviously affect the build. Once the epoxy sets, you won't get it back to being its original size.
If you don't have a scroll saw, a hand fret saw is quicker than you might imagine. Let the saw draw itself in, don't force it. It will cut surprisingly quickly. Better thana scroll sdaw and much quicker and cheaper is a second hand band saw with a blade off ebay. I got mine from a Sunday market (a choice of 4) for £12 and a selection of 5 new blades for £13. Still on the first one! Just this minute used it to cut a Victorian tiller from 90 year old Honduras mahogany for my Vanity model.

Good luck.

Martin

Got the after half of the ply deck on and a lot of filling of wee dips and dints prior to final sanding and gloss painting.
All build from here on in. I need dowel for the mast, but B&Q are only allowed to sell me emergency items. It's like Sunday trading all over again!

Martin

You could brush epoxy into the parts that have delaminated. You can thin epoxy with denatured alcohol apparently or there is a new water based epoxy made in Holland that soaks in much better, but, as Doug said, put something heavy on top with a thin plastic sheet to avoid sticking and then wait a day. It will all be good as new after that and you can go on to build it. I had to do similar with a few Aerokits models and it worked perfectly. Some were already half built and I had to just put a lot of little spring clamps on to re-laminate the old ply. Now perfect. Ain't nuttn' can't be fixed. I actually prefer a restoration to a new build and I've been a professional modelmaker since I was 16, a little over 50 years ago!
Failing that, I'll have it
Martin

Colin, an A class yacht, if it has sails and internal control gear (apart from radio) is worth a great deal more than that. I would bite your hand off if I had space, but with a Marblehead in the loft and a 4 foot gaffer under the slot track, I can't fit in any more. Wish I could. I'd love an A class or a 10 Rater.
Even those ugly little IOMs are going for £700 upwards. For the old chap's sake, don't give it away!

Martin

Tried out the RC gear today and it worked fine. Sail winch on the trigger, steering on the wheel. I can't see a problem with that. The winch is automatically centred, 3 turns one way, 3 tother. I red a lot about servos not lasting long due to loading, so I'm already considering a screwed rod system, then the load is taken by the thread, not any gears, although a worm and wheel would work too. My trouble is, I wouldn't understand the electrickery with the microswitches, etc. Clearly there is room for experimentation if you have the nous and some workshoppery. I need to tension the steering cord as it wouldn't grip the pulley, but that shouldn't be a problem.
Getting there, slowly.

Martin