Hi Rich,
My patience has been tried lately, some lesions are easier than others, I don't enjoy re-making things and resist doing that but at the end of the day I wouldn't be happy with the model.
Cheers,
Stephen.
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Working Steam powered wooden Drifter trawler, Formidable LT100, 1:24th scale
- Thread starter Stevedownunder
- Start date
- Watchers 33
My patience has been tried lately, some lesions are easier than others, I don't enjoy re-making things and resist doing that but at the end of the day I wouldn't be happy with the model.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Thanks Heinrich,
I wonder why you are not getting updates?
I think everyone who builds things including models makes mistakes, the big question is how you deal with them whether you try to sweep them under the carpet or face them and then correct them. I know when this project is finished this episode will appear minor.
I think part of my problem is I never gave any thought to this part of the build until now, which shows my lack of experience just means a steep learning curve, maybe too much of the Australian "she'll be right" attitude mixed in.
At the end of the day I am learning many things about myself and building a model boat.
Thankyou for your ongoing support my friend.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Thankyou for all the supportive words and likes, I do apricate them. 
Cheers,
Stephen.
Cheers,
Stephen.
At times when I do a remake of a problem I end up breaking something else by jiggling too many things around without seen them with my blind eye and occasionally fuzzy vision in my working eye. The lack of depth perception has me reaching into space instead of what I am trying to grasp. I hope that your redo's are better than my experiences. Rich (PT-2_
Sorry to hear that Rich eyesight is quite precious especially with this hobby, I am glad to hear it doesn't stop you trying.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Thank's Steve. I proceed under the old maxim "If you don't use it, you loose it!" I just have to accept what it is at the moment and move on. Rich
Covering Boards and Hatch Coaming.
I began by remaking the 2 forward covering boards, even though I had a good template (the old ones) this still took quite a while, but I got there in the end.
I re-did some more stanchions swapped others and opened up the clearance between covering board and stanchions on most of them, meaning there is more clearance than I would really like, though if I don’t tell anyone no one will know.
Moving away from the covering boards and stanchions, while still not quite complete, I still need to trim the inside edge of all the covering boards.
This deviation is partly because I don’t really know what to do next, I still have concerns about the stanchions, currently I am considering making up the capping rail and temporally fitting it.
I thought I would make a start on the main fish hatch coaming. Firstly consulting Ted Frost’s book to get material thickness, then making up the required material, I chose what I think is Kauri pine because I have plenty of it and I find it quite nice to work with.
Going by Ted’s sketch there was also an opportunity to have a go at some miniature joinery, something I don’t have any real experience with, one thing I did find out is Kauri pine is not really well suited to miniature joinery.
Book.
Plans.
After several hours of enjoyable work I had the beginnings well under way and with a reject/spare front piece that nearly turned into two rejects/spare front pieces, I trimmed too much off the side of the first one and the second one ended up too short so there was nearly a third one made though after some careful consideration small packing pieces were added to the second one, of course the aft part of the coaming joints were a beautiful fit first time.
Next I wanted to make the angled rebate where the covers locate into. To do this I dragged out the Proxxon router attachment once again, I found that I wasn’t
happy with the fence on this so I machined it flat on the mill.
Next I made up a block with the correct angle to use as a guide, then stuck it to the fence with double sided sticky tape.
I cut the rebate in several passes not wanting to try and cut it all in one pass.
That’s about it for the moment, thanks for having a look, more to come soon ( I hope ).
Cheers,
Stephen.
I began by remaking the 2 forward covering boards, even though I had a good template (the old ones) this still took quite a while, but I got there in the end.
I re-did some more stanchions swapped others and opened up the clearance between covering board and stanchions on most of them, meaning there is more clearance than I would really like, though if I don’t tell anyone no one will know.
Moving away from the covering boards and stanchions, while still not quite complete, I still need to trim the inside edge of all the covering boards.
This deviation is partly because I don’t really know what to do next, I still have concerns about the stanchions, currently I am considering making up the capping rail and temporally fitting it.
I thought I would make a start on the main fish hatch coaming. Firstly consulting Ted Frost’s book to get material thickness, then making up the required material, I chose what I think is Kauri pine because I have plenty of it and I find it quite nice to work with.
Going by Ted’s sketch there was also an opportunity to have a go at some miniature joinery, something I don’t have any real experience with, one thing I did find out is Kauri pine is not really well suited to miniature joinery.
Book.
Plans.
After several hours of enjoyable work I had the beginnings well under way and with a reject/spare front piece that nearly turned into two rejects/spare front pieces, I trimmed too much off the side of the first one and the second one ended up too short so there was nearly a third one made though after some careful consideration small packing pieces were added to the second one, of course the aft part of the coaming joints were a beautiful fit first time.
Next I wanted to make the angled rebate where the covers locate into. To do this I dragged out the Proxxon router attachment once again, I found that I wasn’t
happy with the fence on this so I machined it flat on the mill.
Next I made up a block with the correct angle to use as a guide, then stuck it to the fence with double sided sticky tape.
I cut the rebate in several passes not wanting to try and cut it all in one pass.
That’s about it for the moment, thanks for having a look, more to come soon ( I hope ).
Cheers,
Stephen.
Looking very nice Steve, plenty of food for thought, I have just finished the second coat of fibreglass up to the sheer line, so my next step will be the cover boards and the stanchions, I have just noticed in the book that the last two planks, the one at the sheer line and the one under it are thicker, did you make yours thicker or just keep them the same, decision's decision's,
Best regards John,
Best regards John,
Thanks John,
Thanks for all the likes.
Nice to hear you are progressing with your Drifter, hopefully we can see some photos later.
The top three strakes and I three strakes at the turn of the bilge are heavier than the rest.
Yes mine planks including the thick ones are pretty much scale thickness.
This photo shows the difference in thickness.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Thanks for all the likes.
Nice to hear you are progressing with your Drifter, hopefully we can see some photos later.
The top three strakes and I three strakes at the turn of the bilge are heavier than the rest.
Yes mine planks including the thick ones are pretty much scale thickness.
This photo shows the difference in thickness.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Very nice mini-carpentry work by you. It informative to watch your progress. Rich (PT-2)Covering Boards and Hatch Coaming.
I began by remaking the 2 forward covering boards, even though I had a good template (the old ones) this still took quite a while, but I got there in the end.
View attachment 256125View attachment 256130
I re-did some more stanchions swapped others and opened up the clearance between covering board and stanchions on most of them, meaning there is more clearance than I would really like, though if I don’t tell anyone no one will know.
Moving away from the covering boards and stanchions, while still not quite complete, I still need to trim the inside edge of all the covering boards.
This deviation is partly because I don’t really know what to do next, I still have concerns about the stanchions, currently I am considering making up the capping rail and temporally fitting it.
I thought I would make a start on the main fish hatch coaming. Firstly consulting Ted Frost’s book to get material thickness, then making up the required material, I chose what I think is Kauri pine because I have plenty of it and I find it quite nice to work with.
Going by Ted’s sketch there was also an opportunity to have a go at some miniature joinery, something I don’t have any real experience with, one thing I did find out is Kauri pine is not really well suited to miniature joinery.
Book.
View attachment 256131
Plans.
View attachment 256132
After several hours of enjoyable work I had the beginnings well under way and with a reject/spare front piece that nearly turned into two rejects/spare front pieces, I trimmed too much off the side of the first one and the second one ended up too short so there was nearly a third one made though after some careful consideration small packing pieces were added to the second one, of course the aft part of the coaming joints were a beautiful fit first time.
View attachment 256133View attachment 256134View attachment 256135
View attachment 256136View attachment 256137View attachment 256138View attachment 256139
Next I wanted to make the angled rebate where the covers locate into. To do this I dragged out the Proxxon router attachment once again, I found that I wasn’t
happy with the fence on this so I machined it flat on the mill.
View attachment 256140
Next I made up a block with the correct angle to use as a guide, then stuck it to the fence with double sided sticky tape.
View attachment 256141
I cut the rebate in several passes not wanting to try and cut it all in one pass.
View attachment 256142
That’s about it for the moment, thanks for having a look, more to come soon ( I hope ).
Cheers,
Stephen.
Thanks for the info Stephen, I shall add extra thickness to the top three planks, but i wont bother with the fourth plank or the ones at the turn of the bilge, i went back and looked at your photo's and can see now that I am looking the difference in thickness of the top planks and that they thin down into the lower planks a couple of frames before the stern post, i will have to sand down the fibre glass first then attach the three thinner pieces to the top planks, thanks again,
best regards John,
No problem John,
You probably won't see the thicker planks on the turn of bilge when she is in the water any way.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Hatch Coaming continued.
As the Hatch Coaming has progressed I have decided to make the covers and center beams removable as in the original following the description in Ted Frosts book Tree to Sea, the idea being when displayed, some or all of the hatch covers can be removed to revile fishing nets and net floats. Although the main fish hold won’t be the full depth I am hopeful there will be enough depth to create the illusion of depth, hopefully this will add a point of interest.
One trouble with this idea is it adds to how much work is involved and the level of accuracy goes up significantly to create it, nothing new there.
After accurately finding the center of the end pieces I machined a groove, then squared off the end using a scalpel.
Next I glued the outer parts together and left them overnight.
Then carefully measured and cut the center beam into two parts and assembled them.
Some material was made up for the hatch covers.
Next was the hatch covers there being 6 on the main part and 2 on the aft part, these would need to be accurately measured and cut for it to work. I wanted hatch covers to able to be put in any order.
Teds description of the hatch covers indicates the grab handles are flush, with a recess chiseled out. This represented a bit of a challenge, firstly these grab handles need to be in the same relative position, of coarse this called for a simple jig to fix the location, once made the jig was attached to the vice using double sided tape.
A test run on a piece of scrap showed the orientation to be wrong, after a quick modification this was rectified and using what I would call a small woodruff cutter, 3 cuts were made to get the required height, this was repeated 32 times.
Next comes the handles themselves this is proving to be more of a challenge than expected and will be included in the next update.
As I am inching slowly closer to needing to apply some finishes, I have experimented with a locally made hobby Acrylic Lacquer the brand being SMS.
I bought a starter pack that includes Black, White also Gloss and Matt Clear. I soon found that I could thin the black to something more like an Ink and when sprayed onto some stanchion off cuts that had been glued together it did a great job of weathering the Huon pine, so far I am very impressed with this product, more experiments to come.
The two photos of my test block, one showing solid black through to very thin ink like black with a clear over the top and an unpainted piece for comparison, the other photo showing stained and clear coated with a just stained piece for comparison.
That’s it for the moment, thanks for looking in and stay safe.
Cheers,
Stephen.
As the Hatch Coaming has progressed I have decided to make the covers and center beams removable as in the original following the description in Ted Frosts book Tree to Sea, the idea being when displayed, some or all of the hatch covers can be removed to revile fishing nets and net floats. Although the main fish hold won’t be the full depth I am hopeful there will be enough depth to create the illusion of depth, hopefully this will add a point of interest.
One trouble with this idea is it adds to how much work is involved and the level of accuracy goes up significantly to create it, nothing new there.
After accurately finding the center of the end pieces I machined a groove, then squared off the end using a scalpel.
Next I glued the outer parts together and left them overnight.
Then carefully measured and cut the center beam into two parts and assembled them.
Some material was made up for the hatch covers.
Next was the hatch covers there being 6 on the main part and 2 on the aft part, these would need to be accurately measured and cut for it to work. I wanted hatch covers to able to be put in any order.
Teds description of the hatch covers indicates the grab handles are flush, with a recess chiseled out. This represented a bit of a challenge, firstly these grab handles need to be in the same relative position, of coarse this called for a simple jig to fix the location, once made the jig was attached to the vice using double sided tape.
A test run on a piece of scrap showed the orientation to be wrong, after a quick modification this was rectified and using what I would call a small woodruff cutter, 3 cuts were made to get the required height, this was repeated 32 times.
Next comes the handles themselves this is proving to be more of a challenge than expected and will be included in the next update.
As I am inching slowly closer to needing to apply some finishes, I have experimented with a locally made hobby Acrylic Lacquer the brand being SMS.
I bought a starter pack that includes Black, White also Gloss and Matt Clear. I soon found that I could thin the black to something more like an Ink and when sprayed onto some stanchion off cuts that had been glued together it did a great job of weathering the Huon pine, so far I am very impressed with this product, more experiments to come.
The two photos of my test block, one showing solid black through to very thin ink like black with a clear over the top and an unpainted piece for comparison, the other photo showing stained and clear coated with a just stained piece for comparison.
That’s it for the moment, thanks for looking in and stay safe.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Attachments
Last edited:
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There is so much to comment on in your latest update: The deck hatch construction is a masterclass in accuracy Stephen!, while the hatch covers are simply superb! How you managed to get them all to fit like that, is beyond me. And then of course all those recesses - again for all of them to be so identical is mind-boggling. I cannot wait to see the handles being fitted!
Hi Heinrich,
Thanks for your comment, I would have to say I was very happy and quite relived that all the hatches fitted as they do.
The use of jigs is the answer to repeating positions it also helps to have fairly good equipment, I am constantly amazed at the accuracy I can achieve on my little Byrnes table saw.
The handles are proving to be more of a challenge, but isn't that part of what makes people like us want to make models.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Those little high quality Byrnes items come with big bucks and also large rewards! Rich (PT-2)
Yes you normally get what you pay for when it comes to machine tools, Rich.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Hatch cover Handles.
The hatch cover handles started by cutting a small groove using an even smaller woodruff cutter than before to rough out the width and length, reusing the jig made for making the recess.
One little trick to find out when the cutter is getting close to touching the job is to use a piece of paper, as you slowly move the job towards the cutter it will start to grab the paper then you know you are getting close.
I set the stops on the mill to give me a repeated slot length, this was done with a bit of back and forth try a bit and check taking my time, even though I had a couple of spare pieces I didn’t want to stuff any up.
Next thing was to get some brass strip that was 1.3mm x .5mm something I didn’t have in stock, though I had some Brass sheet .5mm thick, all I had to do is cut some strips 1.3mm wide. I know from previous experience that cutting such thin strips is problematic I therefore decided to use one of the zero clearance saw table inserts I bought with the saw.
Using a .5mm wide slitting blade I cut through the insert until I got to a height I was happy with then removed the insert and carefully added a very small amount of clearance so the slitting blade would not rub.
When it came to cutting the .5mm sheet I stuck it to an old piece of ply wood using double sided tape to provide some support, set the required thickness and cut a few strips.
After cleaning up the double sided tape which was by now getting quite ordinary because of the cutting oil I used when cutting, I started cutting it into the required lengths.
To do this I used 2 pieces of scrap to trap and support the strip while I cut it, this preformed 2 functions one to prevent the piece from deforming the other to prevent it flying across the room at the end of cut, these 2 things I have learnt the hard way in the past.
Now I had the handles made and having roughly cut the slots on the mill for them to sit in I needed to finish off the slots, after making a bit of a mess of the first one, I then had a look around the workshop trying to find a suitable tool with no luck. Then I decided to modify a scalpel blade and turn it into a little chisel, this was quite easily done using a bench grinder, being careful not to overheat the blade.
Then the process of cutting all of the slots to size began, this took me quite a while as I wanted a good fit for all of them.
Once all the slots were finished off I began gluing in the handles using Titebond 3.
There are a couple of workers that came along in their Sunday best for a photo in the ship yard, they are quite happy with the progress.
At the end I am quite happy with the end result even though the handles seemed like a bit of an anti climax, what seems like a lot of work for little reward.
Still some more work to do on the Hatch coaming, and eventually painting blue.
Next up Fore room Hatch coaming and covers.
That’s it for the moment, thanks for looking in and stay safe.
Cheers,
Stephen.
The hatch cover handles started by cutting a small groove using an even smaller woodruff cutter than before to rough out the width and length, reusing the jig made for making the recess.
One little trick to find out when the cutter is getting close to touching the job is to use a piece of paper, as you slowly move the job towards the cutter it will start to grab the paper then you know you are getting close.
I set the stops on the mill to give me a repeated slot length, this was done with a bit of back and forth try a bit and check taking my time, even though I had a couple of spare pieces I didn’t want to stuff any up.
Next thing was to get some brass strip that was 1.3mm x .5mm something I didn’t have in stock, though I had some Brass sheet .5mm thick, all I had to do is cut some strips 1.3mm wide. I know from previous experience that cutting such thin strips is problematic I therefore decided to use one of the zero clearance saw table inserts I bought with the saw.
Using a .5mm wide slitting blade I cut through the insert until I got to a height I was happy with then removed the insert and carefully added a very small amount of clearance so the slitting blade would not rub.
When it came to cutting the .5mm sheet I stuck it to an old piece of ply wood using double sided tape to provide some support, set the required thickness and cut a few strips.
After cleaning up the double sided tape which was by now getting quite ordinary because of the cutting oil I used when cutting, I started cutting it into the required lengths.
To do this I used 2 pieces of scrap to trap and support the strip while I cut it, this preformed 2 functions one to prevent the piece from deforming the other to prevent it flying across the room at the end of cut, these 2 things I have learnt the hard way in the past.
Now I had the handles made and having roughly cut the slots on the mill for them to sit in I needed to finish off the slots, after making a bit of a mess of the first one, I then had a look around the workshop trying to find a suitable tool with no luck. Then I decided to modify a scalpel blade and turn it into a little chisel, this was quite easily done using a bench grinder, being careful not to overheat the blade.
Then the process of cutting all of the slots to size began, this took me quite a while as I wanted a good fit for all of them.
Once all the slots were finished off I began gluing in the handles using Titebond 3.
There are a couple of workers that came along in their Sunday best for a photo in the ship yard, they are quite happy with the progress.
At the end I am quite happy with the end result even though the handles seemed like a bit of an anti climax, what seems like a lot of work for little reward.
Still some more work to do on the Hatch coaming, and eventually painting blue.
Next up Fore room Hatch coaming and covers.
That’s it for the moment, thanks for looking in and stay safe.
Cheers,
Stephen.
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Fantastic workmanship and photos Steve, lot's of info to digest,
Best regards John,
Best regards John,