Working Steam powered wooden Drifter trawler, Formidable LT100, 1:24th scale

Part 15.

Somewhere along the way I dropped the idea of using an Arduino Nano and settled on using a FrSky Taranis 9x plus, programmable radio. This radio has Telemetry along with the benefit of being able to be programmed using Open TX Companion. This is an open source program that runs on a computer allowing me to create a program on my computer test it on the computer then download to the transmitter.

I have not tried to copy what Ian Gerrard did in his truly amazing control system however I have taken the concept and adapted it to a manageable level for me.

With most equipment mounted on the rail I pulled it apart and painted it. Turns out there are quite a few parts!!
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I painted the rail parts dark Brunswick green, feed pumps and manifold Blue. Stop valve and pressure relief valve Red. Parts that are natural brass or copper were clear coated.
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Our viscus guard dog is protecting the painted parts. ;)
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Before I mounted too many things to the rail I set the relief valve using compressed air.
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After the paint had fully dried I reassembled the rail. I had read that balsa wood has really good insulating properties so I made an insulating tub for my steam manifold from it then painted it silver.
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I mounted all the equipment that has been made so far to the rail.
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A big thank you to those following and for all the likes, I really apprentice them.

Cheers,
Stephen.
 

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Part 15.

Somewhere along the way I dropped the idea of using an Arduino Nano and settled on using a FrSky Taranis 9x plus, programmable radio. This radio has Telemetry along with the benefit of being able to be programmed using Open TX Companion. This is an open source program that runs on a computer allowing me to create a program on my computer test it on the computer then download to the transmitter.

I have not tried to copy what Ian Gerrard did in his truly amazing control system however I have taken the concept and adapted it to a manageable level for me.

With most equipment mounted on the rail I pulled it apart and painted it. Turns out there are quite a few parts!!
View attachment 194254View attachment 194255
I painted the rail parts dark Brunswick green, feed pumps and manifold Blue. Stop valve and pressure relief valve Red. Parts that are natural brass or copper were clear coated.
View attachment 194256
Our viscus guard dog is protecting the painted parts. ;)
View attachment 194257View attachment 194258

Before I mounted too many things to the rail I set the relief valve using compressed air.
View attachment 194259

After the paint had fully dried I reassembled the rail. I had read that balsa wood has really good insulating properties so I made an insulating tub for my steam manifold from it then painted it silver.
View attachment 194260


I mounted all the equipment that has been made so far to the rail.
View attachment 194261

A big thank you to those following and for all the likes, I really apprentice them.

Cheers,
Stephen.
I am truly amazed at your familiarity and expertise with the heart of your system and ability to reassemble all of the painted parts once again. This will be exciting to see in operation. Rich (PT-2)
 
I am truly amazed at your familiarity and expertise with the heart of your system and ability to reassemble all of the painted parts once again. This will be exciting to see in operation. Rich (PT-2)
Thanks Rich,

Don't tell anyone but it's not all that amazing seeing that I took quite a few photos of dismantling the rail along with marking / stamping components before removal.

Cheers,
Stephen.
 
Thanks Rich,

Don't tell anyone but it's not all that amazing seeing that I took quite a few photos of dismantling the rail along with marking / stamping components before removal.

Cheers,
Stephen.
That is a very wise procedure that I had not thought of doing. Like putting cookie crumbs down on the trail to find you way back, .. . if the bad wolf didn't eat them. . . ;-) Rich
 
That is a very wise procedure that I had not thought of doing. Like putting cookie crumbs down on the trail to find you way back, .. . if the bad wolf didn't eat them. . . ;-) Rich
That sort of preventive work is born from hard won experience pulling things apart and trying to put them back together.

Cheers,
Stephen.
 
Extremely nice work SteveThumbsup

As a side note, an ex colleague of 20 years used to work for John Hemmens(makers of the LT100 kit) in Selby assembling model steam engines and boilers.This was nearly 30 years ago mind.

Kind Regards

Nigel
Hi Nigel,

Thanks for dropping in, the comment and thumbs up.

How time goes, funny how things that happened 20 or 30 years ago don't seem that long ago!

The John Hemmens LT100 kit, is without doubt the best kit for this trawler in my opinion, although you will need fairly deep pockets to buy the POF kit with engine and boiler.

Cheers,
Stephen.
 
Part 16.

The rudder was something I was looking forward to building for a long time. Combining a small amount of woodwork with a reasonable amount of metal fabrication, having done a lot of work on the steam plant I chose to take a break from that aspect and make the rudder.

My aim was to build a rudder and rudder post as close as possible to the original using the plan and book From Tree to Sea as a guide, while being able to remove it completely from the boat. My initial design envisaged a few compromises and alterations the most obvious being distance between rudder shaft and rudder post.

After finding that the rudder shaft tube was not quite on the right angle, I removed it and elongated the hole slightly.


Then I started making up a lower rudder shaft support or “TOE IRON” as this fixes the rudder shafts lower position. This was fabricated from brass, silver soldered together.
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I used "magic" tape to mark up a development for making the brass part.
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"Magic" tape laid flat and transferred onto brass sheet.
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Rough cutting out the shape on my larger table saw using a negative rake saw blade, if you don't use this type of blade it WILL BITE if you try to cut Brass or Aluminium. This is potentially a dangerous thing to do, don't attempt this unless you are aware of the risks, experienced +confidant!!!
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Next was the “T” section rudder post, I tried to find a length of commercially made brass material with no success. There were two ways I could go, fabricate or machine from solid, I wasn’t confidant of fabricating a “T” to the quality I was looking for so I machined one from solid brass in the mill. I made the upper and lower rudder post brackets. Cutting them from brass sheet then folded them to shape.
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These were silver soldered to the rudder post in a jig of sorts to assure alignment.
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Making the hinge like components that bolt to the Rudder post and retain the rudder shaft, proved time consuming. Turned out the woodwork part of this was not much work.
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Making some 12 BA all thread, to be cut to length and have a nut soldered onto one end to make hex head bolts.
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The miniature HEX nuts and bolts are homemade using a rotary indexing table on the mill, commercial ones having too big a HEX for this application.
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For soldering the 2mm AF nuts onto the rudder straps (not really sure what they are called) I made up a guide from an old clutch pencil led. This made life a lot easier to solder these very small nuts on.
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I couldn't fit all the photos that I wanted to for this component in one post so this part continues into part 16.2.

Thanks for having a look.

Cheers,

Stephen.
 
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Part 16.2.

More photos.

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As my build progressed, I ended up either moving position, remaking or modifying some of the components moving away from my original design and finding that I was able to build a more accurate representation whilst still being completely removable, all taking considerably longer than expected, nothing new there.

Thanks for having a look.

Cheers,
Stephen.
 
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Part 16.2.

More photos.

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As my build progressed, I ended up either moving position, remaking or modifying some of the components moving away from my original design and finding that I was able to build a more accurate representation whilst still being completely removable, all taking considerably longer than expected, nothing new there.

Thanks for having a look.

Cheers,
Stephen.
Your metal working and machining skills, along with the right equipment, amaze me sitting in my newbie chair in front of my monitor looking at the precise work. Very well done. Rich (PT-2)
 
LT100 My Way

With this build log there is a lot of ground to catch up on I have been building this model for more than 20 years. I do not profess to be an expert builder, nor that this is an exceptional model, especially considering that this is only my second scratch built model, however my intention is to build the best model I can (this is true most of the time). My first reasonable scratch build being a simple hard chine cabin cruiser. Most of the models I have built have been plastic kits.

My intention with this project was to build a working model without many compromises, that is to say when out of the water you would not be able to tell it is a working model.

I welcome constructive comment.

I hope people enjoy the journey with me.

Looking around for a scratch build project, something that wouldn’t take too long (ha-ha) or be too complex or too large, I found that I really liked the look of steam drifter trawlers, a wooden prototype being preferred as I could build a model hull out of wood then build a steam plant to power it; therefore the model would have some similarity to the original even if internally it wasn’t a replica. So the decision was made to build myself one, I started searching for suitable plans, this was in a time before the internet when things weren’t just a click away, therefore I relied on the couple of plans catalogues that I had in my possession.

Plans were found in the MAP Plans catalogue, then this project got off to something of a false start in 1990 with the purchase of a set of plans drawn by R. A. Neville to a scale of 1/24, from the Plan Shop in New South Wales Australia these are for a typical Wooden Steam Drifter, I am not sure when these plans were first printed, however I have inherited a copy of Model Engineer published in September 1959 which is the first of 4 articles titled, How to build a Wooden Steam Drifter, written by R. A. Neville (I didn’t find this article until many years after starting work on this project!) I wasn’t quite happy with these plans, being more interested in building something that represented an actual vessel, so I sat on them for quite a while umming and arr-ing, thinking they are not quite what I wanted.

Then to my amazement and elation, on the cover of Model Boats in April 1993 was a beautifully made model, that had been entered into Class C9 kit class at the 1993 Model Engineer Exhibition, of LT100 built by Robin Butler, winning a Silver medal, and guess what next month there were to be plans for this trawler, wow just what I wanted!

Life got in the way of hobby as it usually does and it wasn’t until a few years later in 1996 that I purchased the plans drawn of Formidable LT 100 by James Pottinger to a scale of 1/33, along with the book From Tree to Sea by Ted Frost, this is a wonderful book about the construction of LT 100 drawing from Ted Frosts memories as an apprentice ship wright.

The plans arrived, then I had them enlarged to what I thought was 1:24 scale, as mentioned earlier I intended to power the model by steam, I went off and measured the opening for the wheel house and I found I could comfortably fit the 3 ½in diameter boiler I was thinking of building through the opening. Having no experience with steam at all, I imagined that steam plants would require quite a bit of servicing, with this in mind I thought it was important to be able to remove the entire steam plant easily for routine maintenance. Next step was to get some plans for an engine.

Probably in 1996, my dad and I went to Kilsyth (an outer suburb of Melbourne, Australia), where Live Steam Supplies of Victoria were, they specialised in miniature steam in all its aspects. Whilst there I purchased plans for a ½ in bore ½ in stroke, twin cylinder double acting oscillating steam engine designed by Basil Harley, published by Model Maker plans service. Probably first printed in July 1983, I have the August 1983 Model Boats with part two in a series of articles to build the engine and boiler along with a 42in long steam launch, once again I didn’t find this article until much later after purchasing the plans even though this was a magazine I had bought!

I had already decided to make the centre flue boiler designed by Peter Arnot. Peter ran an excellent series of articles in Model Boats for a Vee 4 steam engine, boiler and associated equipment throughout the year of 1993, I intended to purchase some 3 ½in copper pipe as illustrated in the plan. Unfortunately Live Steam Supplies of Victoria didn’t have any 3 ½in copper pipe, turns out this isn’t a size commonly used in Australia, what to do, luckily I had bought along the trawler plans and after a few quick measurements were taken, a rash on the spot decision was made, (this would latter cause problems) I purchased two pieces of 4in diameter copper pipe that were cut to length, along with flat sheet copper for the end plates, smaller diameter tubing, a few packs of solder on nuts and tails along with other various items including a Cheddar ceramic gas burner.

The steam engine and boiler were started along with the work boat, work proceeding roughly in parallel.

Most people start with the hull, however I decided to start making the work boat first, my thinking being if I can make a small clinker built boat to the standard I wanted then the rest should be achievable, also I wouldn’t be in such a rush to finish what is really “just a fitting” for the project, therefore possibly doing a better job.

After reading the clinker-built boat section of “PLANK-ON-FRAME MODELS and SCALE MASTING & RIGGING Volume 2” by Harold A Underhill a start could be made.

I wanted to use Huon pine, for most of this little boat, this is a very slow growing timber unique to Tasmania in Australia, which was used to build real ships and boats from, due to its ability to not rot even when submerged, it also has a straight, fine grain and generally pale in colour.

I made a start by spending a day at dad’s using his table saw to cut up some blocks of Huon pine into strips to make up a “kit” of material. This material I had bought back from Tasmania on my honeymoon, packed into our suitcases to my wife’s bewilderment. Then making a building board and former's from MDF (not the best material to use as the dust is very bad for you, I was unaware of this at the time). The keel was fabricated from several pieces of an unknown hard wood all pinned together with homemade bamboo pins, a Huon pine transom being pinned to the stern post also keel doublers attached for planks to rest on. I would like to say that I could not have made the work boat without Harold Underhill’s book, there was a lot of reading then rereading combined with head scratching going on during the build. The main difficulty was to generate the shape of planks. At one point I nearly scrapped the whole thing as I couldn’t seem to get the planking just right, however after some consideration I pressed on with the attitude it doesn’t really matter if this one is not perfect I will learn lesions in building it and I can always build another if it isn’t up to scratch. Once templates were made the plank would be cut and steamed then clamped into position, left there for a few days then glued on with Cyanoacrylate and pinned to the previous plank, making sure not to pin it to the building frame.

After planking the hull was removed from its jig then ribs, benches, floor boards, rubbing strake and knees were added, some artistic licence was taken, I didn’t follow the plans completely choosing to not add grab lines like you would see on a life boat and a device that I was unable to determine its purpose mounted on the transom. Next oars were made, these are not shown on the plans, I didn’t want to make paddle’s, so I looked through books that I have trying to determine proportions and came up with something that looks like an oar to me, I made these from Huon pine in two parts. Next came the crutches and sockets, Brass tube was used for the sockets being fitted into holes drilled. Next the crutches, these were fabricated from brass wire and fine chain silver soldered together, when I am silver soldering small parts I use a technique my dad taught me, that is to cut off the required amount of solder and once you have heated the flux a little to boil most of the moisture away, then place the solder using tweezers where it is required, the solder will stay in place because most of the moisture has gone from the flux, gently apply heat and you should have a very neat job. While on the subject of soldering a low-cost alternative to fire bricks is to use what is called Hebel in Australia this is a lightweight product used in buildings and landscaping it is an aerated concrete sold in blocks. Once the flux was cleaned up, they were painted black using Humbrol enamel. Using a Teak coloured wood stain, I masked then stained the top strake down to the rubbing strake. The inside and top strake now received a couple of coats of satin varnish. The rest of it received a few coats of Humbrol satin white airbrushed on. In the end after it was finished, I hadn’t quite achieved what I set out to do however, I was quite happy with my little work boat even with its short comings.View attachment 182851View attachment 182852View attachment 182853View attachment 182854View attachment 182855View attachment 182856
That is a beautifully executed row boat. Precise, symmetrical, and well detailed. Rich (PT-2)
 
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