KeithAug

Time for another update. I hope you are all well and that your Christmas won't be too disrupted by the pandemic. Pat - thank you for your comments. So I moved on to something different. On each side of the fore and main masts are a pair of pin rails - 4 in all, and all identical. I have fairly decent photos. I was able to scale the dimensions from a combination of photos and a little plan detail. As usual I made a sketch. Each rail has 8 holes - 6 for pins and 2 for the legs. The rail height is 0.6" and they are 1.25" long. I started with a block of mahogany which I cut to size and then I drilled the 8 holes. The pins will fit in brass collars .04" internal diameter and .092" outside diameter. I pressed and glued 6 pieces of brass tube into the mahogany to create the collars. I then sliced off the 4 rails. The legs were turned from brass rod 1/8" diameter. The legs were bored to take spigots ( at both ends) for mounting to the deck and attaching the rail. I also turned up some small mahogany plinths before assembling the various bits. I also turned the brass washers which fit over the upper spigots and below the retaining nuts. I ground a piece of 1/4" tool steel into the profile of the belaying pin handled then started manufacturing the 24 pins. They were turned from 3/32" rod. I am on cooking duty tonight so I must stop here. More to follow shortly.

Dan, I fear this build will be over much too quickly.

I have wondered about that tool for a while, but never taken the plunge. I’ll be interested to see how it works out.

Allan, your experience with silkspan (paper) will be quite informative when I come to make sails for Germania. I am watching with interest but as you progress I would welcome your view on how applicable it is for much larger sails.

Wise words Roger. I think I'll stick to building.

Tim - Yes, your attention to detail is better than mine. I will now have to rectify matters.

On retirement I promised myself that I wasn't going to embark on any project that would become a chore. I am now in retirement year 8 and despite a number of close shaves to date i have not failed.

Tim - I don't believe so. I'm pretty sure that the ventilators are turned individually and manually by the crew.

Allan, so did I. I remember converting to silk after the frustration of tissue which seemed to puncture on every landing. I’m assuming silkspan lies somewhere between the two in terms of robustness.

Very interesting Allan. Do you worry about the fragility of the silkspan during construction or is it reasonably robust?

Pat, Druxey, Keith and Dan - thank you for the comments, you are too kind. I am gradually grinding my way through stuff that I left incomplete some time ago. The main boom crutch was almost finished minus the life ring lights. I find myself flipping into mm dimensions at times - catching up with metrification which I seem to remember happened about 40 yeas ago. I must have some sort of regressive Luddite gene. I turned the lights from yellow plastic rod so I didn't need to bother with painting. I attached a length of line and tied them to the life rings and then mounted them on predrilled holes in the crutch ( sometimes planning ahead works out ). My regular readers will note I still haven't sorted out the unnatural lie of the rope around the life rings - it is still on the "to do" list. For an age I have been putting off drilling the holes around the base of the main and fore masts (to take blocks). This is not through some unnatural aversion to the drill but rather because the plans and the photographs don't match. I spent a lot of time trying to reconcile and record the differences while thinking trough what rigging lines would go to which blocks. In the end none of the evidence was very helpful so I decided to go with my best guess. Having made a guess I then went to a lot of trouble to position the holes very accurately. Accurately positioning the location of guessed holes must be one of the definitions of madness. But anyway I cut templates from placard. These were accurately drilled with holes at the pitch circle diameter extracted from the plan and at angular spacings plucked from fresh air. These templates were then mounted on turned spigots that fitted the mast holes in the hull. The block mounting holes were then drilled through, note the wood chips everywhere. Finally brass grommets were glued in to take the pre made eyelets. In the coming months as I proceed to rigging I will no doubt discover the error of my ways.

Hello Tim, I see you are gradually working your way through my various posts, Thank you for taking an interest and for the the detailed feedback. Someone did suggest this but finding the time would be an issue and I think I prefer building rather than writing. I am thankful for those of you who take an interest in what I do but I fear not many outside the forum would find my ramblings of great interest. Maybe the book will have to wait until I am too feeble to do much else. Tim - I hadn't seen this before but on your prompting I did a bit of youtube research. It looks like a very good Idea which I plan to try out. Thank you for the advice. Thanks for the link Tim.

Allan, Keith Druxey. Pat and Gary- thank you all for your comments, you are all too kind. I quite often look at other modellers work and think I wish I was that good. Perhaps it is all a matter of perspective. Not much of an update this time - just to confirm that I finished the deckhouse and can now move on to something else. The benches were glued in place and the life rafts were glued beneath them. I then made the brackets for the planks that fit across the front of the rafts. The planks were then installed making the raft cradles almost impossible to see from most angles of observation. With the poly application finished I was able to remove the masking tape from the windows. The ships bell was mounted. The penultimate vent was then put in place. The wires holding the doors on were removed and replaced with hinge pins. Apart from a good dusting the deckhouse is complete and now I will have to decide where to go next.

Looking really good.

The tracks look pretty good to me Keith, I don't think many would notice the slight scale issue. Were they black on the original? I am trying to remember my last visit to HMS Warrior where I think the tracks were brass. In any event I do like the way the intersecting circles decorate and add interest to the deck.

Gary - the whole effect is absolute magic - a sensational little boat.

The shaping is going really well Tom, not bad for a first scratch build. I find my mind can wander in almost any situation.

She is coming along very quickly Allan. Are you working to a deadline or are you just naturally quick? Not sure you should have used that piece of walnut, now it won't be available for some future use.

Thank you Michael, I'm sure it would be too distracting from model making. Maybe when I can't see what i am doing anymore. I seem to have been at the deckhouse for an age. It is now nearly complete so I need to get a wiggle on and finish it. Back to the roof - which has 10 small mushroom vents. These were turned and then installed. I also made the rests for the boat hook. The rubbish under the front edge of the hatch is wire wool debris. I then spent a pointless hour making the ceiling lights - totally hidden from all angles of view. The frosted glass is actually nylon rod turned to a dome. I picked a likely looking boathook from the web. I turned the head and drilled a cross hole at an angle to mount the hook. The shaft was then soldered on. The shaft was then covered with brown heat shrink tube and the hook glued in place. Finally the boat hook was glued to the roof. On the front face of the deckhouse is a nice ships bell. Not very big but I couldn't resist giving it a striker. The striker looks large at this magnification but you can hardly see. I platted a bell chord from cotton.

A very interesting subject Dan. I will be following along. Have a good Thanksgiving.

Eberhard - These particular columns form part of the Pu purification cycle for the Thermal Oxide Reprocerssing Plant, my guess is that it won't feature highly on the decommissioning list for some years. I also did work the Low Active Effluent Treatment Plant, the Solvent Treatment Plant and early cement encapsulation schemes before I went into the more socially acceptable but more lethal brewing industry.

Greg, the amount of brass fittings was part of the incentive for making Germania, although the model has more than the original because stainless steel in the original is replaced by brass in the model. In some photos of the original it is clear the crew didn’t always bother with the polish. ) The story of my life Druxey. About 36 years ago I was granted a patent for a liquid distributor for mixing the feeds into solvent extraction columns. It was used in nuclear reprocessing plants, buried deep inside highly radioactive equipment behind 6 feet of concrete, not to be seen again for a thousand years. Allan, I used soft solder. I find silver soldering Is too aggressive when used on very thin brass. Soft solder is generally strong enough if you keep the tools sharp and the cuts light. John, Pat, Bruce, thank you for your supportive comments.

Loverly looking ship - from an era when naval architects still thought aesthetics were important. Good luck with the build

Another little masterpiece Javier. You must let us all see the fleet assembled together some time.