gjdale

Great start to what will be another excellent build to follow, B.E. I’ve pulled up a chair and popped some beer in the fridge.

Congratulations on another very fine build Rusty. She looks beautiful and is a credit to your craftsmanship.

Splendid work Bob, she really is looking beautiful.

Congratulations on completing yet another excellent build B.E. Like others, I’ll be keenly awaiting your next project to follow.

I think your hopes have been answered Ben!

I’ll second what Bill has just said. I too tried to place an order a while back but had to wait until Mihail returned in October. I received my set last week and they are every bit as beautiful as others have said. Again, communication was via Google translate and payment via PayPal - both painless operations. Mikhail has been a thoroughly nice person to deal with as well.

Stunning work, as always, Dan.

Looking good Mobbsie. Don’t be concerned about the visibility of the treenails - I can just see them in the photo and at this scale you want them to be only just visible if you look closely.

Have a look at this video by Paul Budzik (he is also a member of MSW). This and many of his other videos are really well done and explain things in a way that is easy to follow. Hope this helps.

Wonderfully well done Bob!

Nice to see you back Andy, but sorry to hear of your career roadblock. As John said, you will find that you have skills that are translatable to a number of different fields - you just have to decide which ones and which field. My advice, for what it’s worth, is don’t rush into anything. Give yourself plenty of time to work through what it is you want to do next. Good to see your unusual model back on the table in the meantime. We’ve missed you both.

There is one being built over on the RC Groups Forum. Here's a link: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2680633-Amati-RMS-Titanic

Moving along with your usual speed I see Mobbsie. Great work so far, and an interesting experiment with the copper. Just a thought, if you remove any protective coating, won’t the copper “age” naturally just exposed to the air?

Lovely work Ben.

Nice to see you back at the work bench Daria. Your progress looks great. Tell Dad to be careful with that scalpel now, we don’t want him hurting himself!

Great to see you starting on this one Mobbsie. I’ve grabbed a front row seat too!

Thanks Mobbsie, The new propellor arrived yesterday, as have the new batteries. Just need the charger for the batteries and some free time (!) to set up for the next sea trials. Won’t be this weekend, I’m afraid - probably the following one. I’ll try and get some better video this time around too!

Thanks Danny, Rusty and Robin (and all the likes). New prop ordered! Changing over from a 1" diameter to 1.5" diameter - that should help move things along a little. I'll also be changing over the battery from the current NiCd to LiPo. I'm told that the LiPo batteries perform a lot better, and they have the added bonus of being a fraction of the weight of the NiCd. Between this and the new prop, I expect she'll go like a scalded cat! Crew members have also had necessary surgery for a comfortable fit in the boat I'll post another video once the mods have been made and tested.

A brief update to say that Sea Trials were successfully conducted today! The good news: 1. She floats 2. She runs DRY - I checked the internals thoroughly after we'd been running a while and there was no sign of water ingress. 3. She performed quite well - but needs some fine tuning. 4. Battery life was quite good. We had several runs over a 90-minute period and the battery died just as I was bringing her back in - just made it! The not so good news: 1. For some reason, the servo for the steering was running in reverse, so I had to turn the control to starboard if I wanted to turn to port etc. Found out that this is an easy fix with the remote control set-up, and have now resolved this one. 2. I seem to have been a bit too clever with my steering wheel that turns with the rudder - it actually turns the opposite way to the way it's supposed to (not related to the problem above). Not sure if I'll be able to fix this one. 3. I couldn't get her going fast enough to get up on the plane. The local club guys reckon I need a larger propellor (I think they're right). Might also need to add a little ballast to the stern to help lift the bows out of the water. She runs nicely level at the moment, which is great for slow speed work, but hey, this is a RACING runabout..... I took a brief video of the Sea Trials (the Admiral was driving at this stage - it's HER boat after all). The crew members were not allowed onboard for Sea Trials, but now that certification has been achieved, they will be added for the next spin (with a new prop!). The video was taken with my iPhone. I take no responsibility for the quality of the video..... [video deleted - see later post for updated video on second round of sea trials.]

Fabulous work Patrick. I’ll follow along from here too.

Dan, one trick you might try for painting the line... Use masking tape the thickness of your final line to define where the line will be, then place another piece of masking tape (as wide as you like) either side of this. Remove the original piece from the middle and you have a nicely masked line to paint. To prevent bleeding under the masking tape, apply a coat of clear first. This will seal the edges of the mask, thus preventing bleeding under the tape. Hope this is helpful.

Beautifully done Bob - that’s one sweet looking transom.

Off to another great start B.E.

Thanks John and Danny, and also to all of the "likes". Not a lot of progress on the "mousetrap" this weekend as I spent most of the weekend making a Router Table and Holding Jig for my mill. However, some progress is better than no progress.... The installation of the harnesses commences with making the two rear wing attachment posts. These are fairly straight forward, and once again I replaced the kit provided parts with scratch-made parts from cherry. The lower back belt is then made from strips of leather and a small ‘key ring’ (for want of a better term) as the buckle. The leather straps are glued to the base of the rear wing attachment posts and then wrapped with thread. The shoulder harness is made in much the same way, although slightly more complex. It is fixed to the base of the neck ring, again wrapped in thread, and also the sides of the fuselage, where the straps are only glued in place. Here is an overview of progress to date: I have commenced work on the fuselage cross-bar, but will hold off on pictures until that section is complete. Suffice to say that my mill holding jig that I made this weekend worked a treat.

Thanks Keith for your original post on this, and thanks Bob for the link to the Cam clamps. I've combined these two ideas to make my own holding jig for the mill table. The base is 19mm MDF - some scrap I had lying around. I modified Ketih's design slightly by using 1/4" aluminium rod instead of wooden dowels for the rear support. These are a nice fit into the T-slot channel in the Sherline Mill Table, so I've kept the original design idea of having these go right through the bed of the jig and into the Mill Table T-slot channel (for the same reasons that Keith gave). Two Sherline T-nuts/bolts are recessed into the table surface and secure the jig in the other T-slot channel. Then I incorporated the ideas in the video link provided by Bob, to create a series of "dog holes" on the jig base, to provide a range of options for positioning the cam clamps. In the video, he uses 18mm copper pipe - just because he had some lying around. Instead, I used some 3/8" aluminium bar stock - just because I had some lying around..... In the picture below you can see the layout. The 1/4" pins at the back are 1 1/2" long, while the 3/8" "dogs" are 1" long. The "dog holes" do not go all the way through the base - they bottom out at a depth of about 12mm. Then I made some cam clamps from the downloaded patterns provided as a link from the video. I made these in two different thicknesses in case I needed something thinner for small stock. Here's a pic of one of each. Again, these were made from some scrap plywood I had lying around. And finally, here's a shot showing the jig in action. The cam levers work surprisingly well. They are quick and easy to use, and the work piece is held extremely securely. The cam clamps show no inclination to back themselves off. In the picture, I've shown five clamps in use - in reality, two or three would likely be sufficient. The use of spacers, as shown in Keith's original post, is still a good idea. I may get around to making the upgraded cam clamps with built-in adjustable spacers - see the link following the video above if you're interested in this. Thanks again to Keith and Bob for showing the way here. This is going to be a really useful addition to the workshop.