Geam

Wheelhouse aft bulkhead is taking a long time to produce. Much more detail than I expected and the layers of varnish dry very slowly. Photos show loosely  placed components which will be assembled when the aluminium widow frames are -miraculously- produced.

Hi Andreas, answered your question about brass tubes below your posted question. Should have written it up here so you could see it easier! Included 2 photos.  The plan is to control the large genoa with 2 servos, one for port tack and one for starboard tack. Hope it works!

George

I've been working on the Fisher 34 since the Colin Archer went into storage. The cockpit area on the Fisher has a lot of curves and has taken time to get right. It's now been brush-painted with one coat of gloss -on top of all the other coats of 'stuff'. Started yesterday on the wheelhouse aft bulkhead and sliding door arrangement and produced what I think is a 'sliding door kit' which will be stained 'teak' and added when the bulkhead is prepared and painted white.

My Colin Archer is now 'airbrushed' as much as I dare until the rest of the boat is completed. I expect that I will have to give it more coats later as there will certainly be some damage while handling during the build. I wanted to test the whole 'airbrush thing' and ended up using the CA as the extended testbed. The finish so far is silke-matt. It's now going down to the cellar storeroom until I get more progress on the Fisher 34. 

George

Colin Archer hull on the balcony today for airbrushing.  Using standard Billing Boats "hull red" antifouling and white topsides.

Wish all a safe weekend,

George

Regading the RUBY air gun (not RuDy as I wrote earlier!). The compressor I have now would not produce enough air pressure to blow through the wider nozzle 0.8 mm.  It's OK for my small airbrush 0.3mm nozzle but not the 0.8mm Ruby gun.  I do not want to buy even more gear for this (ie larger compressor) so I have returned the Ruby to the dealer. 

Had another go at airbrushing the Fisher hull with my small airbrush -this time with added 'paint retarder' to the thinned clear gloss. Got a reasonable silky-gloss finish which I think is acceptable.

Next job is to try to repeat the process with the next hull: the 1/15th scale Colin Archer. Don't need a glossy finish on that so should be able to manage a reasonable result with the smaller airbrush. I'm going for Bob's info regarding a varnished top-coat to give a bit of resilience to the surface. Without retarder it'll probably dry fast enough to give me a silk-matte finish.

I find it a bit stressful trying to do things which I can't do 😬 but before too long it'll be one more thing I CAN do😁

Regards

George

Further to the last info about the Rudy: as half the world will already know, the Rudy can be adjusted to spray in a fan shape as apposed to round spray. This gives a better chance of laying down enough paint on larger surfaces to achieve a glossy finish -I hope!  I'm very new at this, so I apologise if I'm stating what every body 

 else knew years ago 🥴

I'm working on the aft combings of the Fisher 34 motorsailer. Have been unsure as to how to construct the combings.  Started off with a plan to construct in 1mm aircraft plywood but that seemed to be very fiddly. As the photos show I'm going for carved balsa block. Won't get a perfect finish but we're talking 'stand-off-scale here' not 'microscope viewing'!

Picked up my Hobbynox Ruby airbrush and two jars of Tamiya clear gloss acrylic today. Instructions for Ruby were encouraging by confirming that it's good for larger hulls and aircraft projects. As I mentioned earlier, I think that may be why I could not get a glossier finish on my Fisher hull. But the present finish is not too bad and like some others suggest, it may be smart to leave it as it is. I'll need the new airbrush for the next hull -Colin Archer RS1- anyway.  Maybe I will test it out by trying gloss on the Fisher silk-matte finish. Maybe I will chicken out, we'll see.

Regards, George