grendel

well I could not help myself, I will make another 18 handrail supports in brass, these were just begging to be fitted onto the model. 3 screwed and 2 plain on each rail, next job to design the roof light / hatch..

yes one of those. I think I will dig out the micrometer, as what was happening was drill bits were falling half way between two sizes- some measured out at for example 1.05mm, when they should have been 1.0 or 1.1.

not quite, you dont get dust with the crisp packet, I went in to a car place and its the final grade to get the area to be painted smooth before paint.

This evening thanks to one of our furry fiends, I have been picking up and measuring my box of drill bits, in sizes ranging from 0.4mm through 3.2mm in roughly 0.1mm steps with half a dozen of each this has taken a while, and I am still not convinced I have got them all in the right spaces, the digital vernier seems to make 2 the same size, then I find there are none the next size and I have 2 different lengths.

I think in this situation even blue fenders are allowed.

oh no! not again!

yesterday my day was quite quiet, it started early (6.30 am, when I got up and was out of the door headed to the boot fair before it got too warm, at the boot fair i bought a decent tenon saw, a nice old pair of pointed nose pliers (with longer points than you get nowadays) a little indoor helicopter for a fiver, and a set of 4 wooden blinds. when I got home I had breakfast and set to disassembling the blinds - over 300 75cm slats of lime wood will provide timber for many another model, as I have mentioned before timber for model boats is usually about £1.00 a length (and upwards) so maybe a saving of over £300 for my £5 purchase. after doing some essential housework it was down to model making, I had 3 handrail supports to turn today, and after each one the lathe has to have about 40 minutes cool down time (the motor is not rated for continuous use) so the first of these was made. then it was time to go into the garden and do some messy sanding on the model #2 an hour was spent filling and sanding. then back indoors and another handrail support on the lathe followed by another session sanding (the filling was done just before coming in - to give it time to set). the only problem I did have was the filler was going off too quickly. this was repeated through the afternoon, the last handrail support was turned, the threads were added (the lathe has to be reconfigured for thread cutting), and then the lathe was taken off the work bench and the whole area thoroughly hoovered to remove the brass shavings. then to decide what next to do on the model. after having a ponder the front cabin roof was chosen, though I might decide to do some work in the cockpit, adding the floors / details etc. this brought me into early evening, I decided to see if I could print some 3d handrail supports with longer shafts to enable some sort of fixing below the roof - out of 3 batches printed I got 4 useable ones. well there you go, thats a typical quiet sunday working on the models for me, a day where a satisfying amount of progress is made.

some work now done, its all coming together now, but will have to wait until next weekend for the next round of filling / sanding

the chip shape when using the home shaped tool is quite interesting, it looks a bit like tinsel forming. here are some of the pictures of the filling of the dinks and bumps in the hull of model #2. the filling and sanding will continue until I am happy, sanding starts at 120 grit, goes through 240, 800, to 1500. then uses a sanding cloth, at 3000 grit, this should get a perfect finish for the sealing and painting.

pictures later, but another handrail support done, yesterday I started work on the hull with the filler, today sanding - and more filler, this is to hide the joins in the planks and any blemishes on he hull, with the sun directly overhead its easy to spot the blemishes.

well another one done to replace the broken one, I think I will make a couple of spares, so I can have 3 threaded ones on the front rails and 2 on the back, the others will just sit through the holes. so 10 threaded ones with the longer shanks needed. I have 7 threaded so far, 1 ready for threading, so just 2 more to make.

Tim cut the pieces in half through the thickness and turn them back to back, then reglue, clamping well, then the curls would cancel each other out.

well i got the 18th done, and am tapping a thread onto some of them so they will fix the rails in place, in doing this I broke one by trying too hard, so another will be made in the morning.

snake and pygmy pie 'n' chips

up to 17 now. 1 more to go for 1 complete set.

well we are up to 16 handrail supports now (one I did last night didnt come out right), so I have made a couple more this morning.

Tim, does it also apply to non elected Quango's?

To be honest Robin, the instructors will introduce something new when they feel you are happy with the last thing you learnt, sometimes it depends on your location at the current point as to what they can teach you (imagine trying to do a hill start in Norfolfk- first find a hill.....). the real importance is just driving, to the point all of the motions become second nature (but not to the point where bad habits creep in). They will want you comfortable on roundabouts before they try to get you to a dual carriageway etc etc. But like you say it would be nice to get some feedback during the lesson. being comfortable with the instructor is important, feeling that they will give honest and valuable feedback.

the only i device I have is an ipaq - this is not an apple product, it was a HP windows mobile device- when they were new they were more expensive than laptops, and really its just a palm computer, but it still works well and has a decent battery life - I believe it is still running windows mobile 5.

Thanks for the Offer Wyndham, if it can be solved in CAD I can usually manage (ex drawing office manager here) if I can draw it I can usually 3D print it, if not I can probably machine it on my little Unimat., but if I do get stuck dont worry I will yell.

The handrail support count is up to 14 now, I reckon there is enough brass left on this first 300mm bar to do a couple more (dont worry I have some more bars (3 more 10mm bars and 2 x 1/2"). at this moment in time I dont know if I will do both models with brass or use the 3d printed ones for the first model and the brass for #2. I can however say that I have finally managed to sharpen the tool for the inside curve (between the ball end and the collar) and I can cut that section with the one tool now (rather than roughing it out, then shaping the curve. here I show the end view of the tool bit that does this job.

some of these old chaps were a lot cleverer than we know - I think, so fitting out a hull while it was in the water makes sense, especially if the ballasted it down to the finished weight so that the right amount was submerged for fit out, then keep it in the water until the top is on and fixed and everything comes out the correct shape.

I suppose if you know the bulkhead shape is correct, if the boat is in the water when you fit it and you have to push the hull out slightly to get it to fit, the water holds everything in place as the glue dries, whereas if it was out of the water you might have to clamp it in place to pull it into shape.

So interesting to see how much of the internal fit out was done before the lid went on, I suppose that was because there was much more space to work on the internals before the roof was put in place.

I remember having a frying pan catch fire in my camper van, the poor soul walking past as it flew out of the door was rather shocked, as was the friend with a beard sitting right next to the door as it went past just in front of his eyes.