St. Roch by David Lester - FINISHED - Billing Boats - 1:72

[wmherbert]

David, 

Good idea for the fire hose. I'll try with some silkspan too. 

Looks like you are coming along fine. The forward plating is a nice touch.

    Now that the house roof is on pretty much everything else are details.

I'm about as far along as you are. Just about ready to build the house. I have just about all of boxes etc built and ready for paint.  I need to do final coat of topside paint and then paint rub rails. Then mount rudder and put on stand.

This is a pretty fun model.

Bill

[CiscoH]

Nice mitered returns on the deckhouse roof Dave

[David Lester]

Thank you. It was a bit of a surprise to me that the mitres came out as well as they did, because the deck house isn't square. I pinned the boards down first without glue, overlapping them at the corners and marking the intersection points. To my amazement, it seemed to work!

Thanks again,

D

[David Lester]

Small update this morning -

 

I've been working on the wheel house.

 

The first thing was building up the depth of the roof -

Then the assembly was quite simple. The walls are made out of very thin plywood and I didn't like the idea of the exposed edges, so I applied a narrow strip of Tamiya tape over the joints, which both hid the raw edges and more or less replicated the look of the real thing.

 

I noticed that the real wheel house has one operable window, while the rest are all stationary, so I tried to replicate that with the cross bar in the one window. You can't see it in this picture, but I also added an actual steering wheel, which you can see when looking straight one.

 

I also built what is referred to as a cargo scow. I assume it's designed to be towed across snow/ice. It has curved ends and sits on runners. For some reason the kit shows this component as a simple box.

 

 

It's shown below along with the hatch, both of which are not installed yet, but just sitting in their approximate locations.

 

You can also see two of the six gooseneck vents which are not included in the kit. I bought some from Cornwall Model Boats and cut them down to size -

 

I also made the three water outlets, which are not included in the kit, using the valves which are not needed for the vents.

 

To make these I used some 1mm brass rod and some brass tubing just big enough to fit the brass rod and the stem of the valve.

 

That's it for this morning. I'm currently working on a number of the other small deck details.

 

Thanks again for checking in!

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

 

[wmherbert]

David, looking very nice.

I like the opening pilot house window. (I will copy that)

The hose valves are a nice touch.

Did you use the plastic for the glass in the pilot house? Also did you paint the interior of the pilot house black or is that just the photo?

I added plastic behind the port lights in the main house but I'm not sure if you can actually it.

     I've been working on the stack. Trying to get the top piece to look like the real thing and shaping the flattened sides of the stack itself . I would like to figure some way of making the small flat vent near the bottom.  I'm sure you will come up with a good idea that I can copy!

     And there is a little box on the back wall of the main house that will be fun to construct.

     What are your thoughts on the ladders? 

Bill

[David Lester]

Bill - I didn't use the plastic for the windows. I have never used it on any of my models. I always just leave the opening. For some reason, I find it distracting to look at and difficult to install without getting glue all over it (at least in my case) so I always just opt to leave it off. I did paint the interior of the wheel house. I used a dark brown.

 

I haven't had a good look at the stack yet, but I do know that the supplied piece is pretty far off from being the right shape. I'm not sure how I'll approach it just yet. The small vents on the bottom of the stack will be pretty hard to do as the scale makes them only about 4mm long. I don't think I would try building them, I think I would be inclined to used a small piece of wood, the correct size, and suggest the vent slots by scoring the wood horizontally. These type of things I tend to experiment with and if the result looks ok, I use it and if not, then I omit it.

The box on the back of the wheel house is an easy detail to replicate, so I will probably add it.

 

The ladders! I have spent the better part of the afternoon trying to make ladders that look better than the provided ones, but I'm having a lot of trouble. I've tried some small brass strip for the sides. I drilled a series of holes and then soldered in brass wire representing the steps. Unfortunately I am the world's worst solderer and the result was quite a mess. I then tried using brass wire for the sides, soldering smaller brass wire across for the steps. Again, quite a mess. There are always two possible outcomes for me - a joint that fails or a glob of solder the size of a golf ball. So, I am still contemplating my options and waiting for another one of my 3 am revelations. 😄

 

David

[wmherbert]

I too have a long way to go on my soldering skills,  or lack of them.

I did ok on a 1:48 scratch built tug on my first attempt at soldering rails but failed miserably on a 1:72 plastic LCT kit. But on the plastic kit I used polystyrene rod and glued it. Came out pretty good. I think I will try that again for the ladders. Also I'll try gluing brass rod pieces.

    Bill

[David Lester]

Good Morning,

 

Bill, those models look great. Just saw your post now; we've been away for a couple of days.

 

A Saturday morning update -

 

Lately I seem to have the attention span of a gerbil and have been working on all kinds of different things.

 

First, the four vent pipes:

 

They're made out of 1.5mm brass rod, bent into shape. I wanted to indicate the joints. First I tried some Evergreen styrene strips, .01" x .02" but it was much too large to be in scale. Then I tried some rigging thread. By trial and error I discovered that both .5 mm and .25 mm lines were too heavy. I settled on ordinary sewing thread and it seems about right.

 

Next, I was concerned that the supplied piece of dowel was not going to be quite right for the funnel. Taking measurements from the on-line 360 tour, I discovered that at 16mm diameter it was spot one. It was just a matter of flattening the sides to about 12mm. Finishing the funnel is probably next in my peripatetic approach to the details.

 

 

The biggest challenge for me has been the four metal ladders. The ones provided are brass and are not bad quality, but don't look anything like the actual ones on the boat. It took me several attempts, but I have come up with something that I think is acceptable and are a pretty close approximation of the real ones.

 

The three that mount on the deck house have curved tops, flat sides and round rungs. So I used some 1/64" x 1/16" brass strips for the sides. I made a small saw kerf at about the place where I wanted it to bend, and then just bent it using two pairs of pliers. It buckled a little, so using my best blacksmithing skills, I just hammered it flat. It's not very elegant, but once painted gray, it's going to work just fine. The rungs are .5mm wire.

 

I'm really bad at soldering, but I discovered that one of the secrets is to hold the parts very firmly. I made two parallel grooves in a piece of wood. Once I had the holes drilled and the wire rungs inserted, I just placed the sides in the two grooves and gave the whole thing a tap with a hammer to seat it. This worked really well, and it wasn't too difficult to solder each rung in place.

 

The ends of the rungs are snipped off and they've had some cleanup ready for paint. I think these will work, and besides, it's the best I can do, and once I know I've reached that point, I can live with it.

 

The fourth ladder that mounts to the wheelhouse doesn't have a curved top and I'll cut it to length when I get to that point.

 

 

The final item for today is the railing that extends out from the wheelhouse on both sides. These pieces were easy to make and I added the detail to the back side to match that of the real boat.

 

So that's it for now.

Again, many thanks for checking in, likes etc.

David

[wmherbert]

David, 

Ladders came out great.

     The wing walls look a lot better with the wall framing rather than the solid slab of wood the kit provides. It's my next construction too.

Where do you get the strip metal you used for the ladders?

Bill

[David Lester]

I've been trying to figure out the complicated steering arrangements on this boat. The kit provides some, but not all of the parts that are required and absolutely no mention of any of it in the plans or instructions. However, I've managed to decipher enough of it from the on-line 360 tour to make an acceptable representation of it.

 

It seems really odd to me that considering that this boat spent most of its life in the Arctic, exposed to snow and ice that so much of this gear would be external, rather than internal.

 

It appears to me that either cable or chain (which is encased and not visible) connects the wheel to rods that in turn connect to chain that runs down the aft side of the deck house, then runs aft along the deck to the rudder which is located beneath a deck fitting; a table or bench (not sure what it should be called.)

 

Now I'm mulling over how to handle the two winches and windlass. The ones provided in the kit are over-simplified and mostly plastic. The winches shouldn't be too hard to re-imagine, but the windlass is a complex piece and will be more difficult. At least, too difficult for my evening brain; more suited to my morning brain. All I'm good for by this time of night is a detective series on BritBox! (my favourite is Vera)

David 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 21 by David Lester

[wmherbert]

David,

Looks like you got it figured out right. The only part you can't see is what is going alongside the life boats on the sides of the house. I remember seeing a photo somewhere showing that section as an exposed rod like you have done but I can't find it now.

      I noticed in your photos that there are two taller vent pipes aft of the house that I didn't notice.  So back to some more construction. 

     I started shaping mast and spars while glue elsewhere was drying. Looks pretty straight forward .

   Any thoughts on sails? I think I might try furled sails with silk span.  I like sails on models so I will give some thought to furled or full.

    Also I noticed that the aft galley exhaust pipe has guy wires for support while forward one doesn't.

     I've been avoiding ladder construction.., but cant keep putting it off.

Bill

[David Lester]

Brief update for this morning -

Bill, if you use the 360 tour and go to the extreme forward starboard side of the roof of the deck house, you can just get a glimpse of the rod arrangement running along the roof. It appears to be a complicated set-up and pretty hard, if not impossible to model accurately at this scale, at least without a better reference. So I'm just representing it with a simple single rod.

I'm not going to add sails. I tend to prefer my models without them, but this model would be an ideal one to show furled ones on. Have you seen Tom Lauria's youtube video on making furled sails from silkspan? It's quite good.

 

I've been working on the lifeboats. I don't like the fact that they're plastic, yet at the same time, I don't really like the idea of building new ones either and I can't seem to locate cast ones that are quite right. So my solution is to use the plastic ones and show them with their canvas covers.

 

I use some sail material from another kit. I was hoping to leave them unpainted, but did paint them in the end, because they looks just a bit too dirty by the time I finished.

 

I first thought I could make each one from one piece of cloth, but soon realized that wouldn't work. The real ones, of course, are constructed out of several pieces, taking the shape into consideration. So, my solution was to use three pieces for each boat like this:

 

I simple glued the side pieces on first. I used white glue which holds quite well. I didn't want to use CA in case I had to remove the piece and start over. I don't think the plastic boat would stand up to the acetone. (It may not have stood up to alcohol any better, had I needed to start over, but I thought the odds were better.) As it turned out, I didn't need to start over.

 

This seems to work fairly well and with so little of the boat showing, it's hard to tell what it's made of.

 

Next, I'm going to attack the windlass.

 

Thanks for checking in.

David

 

 

[wmherbert]

David,

The life boats came out very well.

I have seen Tom Laurie's video.  I made up some sails today.  I'm going to attach the mast hoops to the sails before slipping them on the masts  and booms while off the model. Then I'll try furling them. I'll let you know how they come out.

   You're making nice progress.

Bill

 

[David Lester]

Good Morning,

I have most of the bits and pieces ready to be added to the deck. Getting the size correct on these has been a bit of a challenge. The plans cannot be trusted. The drawings differ between the plan view and elevation view by as much as 10mm on some things!

 

There is a measuring tool on the 360 tour on-line that works very well, but it's difficult to get every measurement needed and not always easy to get the same measurement twice. So it's been a matter of trial and error and discovering what fits and looks about right to the eye.

 

I enhanced the kit provided windlass a little bit, relying on the on-line pictures and working only with the limited supplies and tools that I have.

 

I'm not sure that it's completely correct, but it looks complicated enough to be believable 😁

 

Thanks for looking it and I hope everyone has a great Easter weekend.

David

 

[Knocklouder]

Looking really good my friend. Happy Easter 🐰🐇

Bob M.

[wmherbert]

Great job on the windlass! A huge improvement.  

[David Lester]

Good Morning,

A short update, but what appears to be a lot of progress. Really just a few minutes of gluing the components on the decks and it almost looks like the model is done.

 

What I found the most challenging so far has been the railings. The ones running along the rail are easy, but the ones on the roofs of the deck house and wheel house were much more difficult. In my naivete I thought I could use one piece of brass rod for each run of the railing, bending it in the appropriate places and feeding it through the stanchions. After about an hour I was about as bent out of shape as the brass rod! In the end, and after restraining myself from throwing the whole thing across the room, I used individual pieces, gluing them between the stanchions.

There's a small platform on the starboard side of the hull. On the real boat, the stanchions are very thin and end in an "eye" through which the chain passes. I experimented with a small piece of dowel, drilling a small hole in the end for an eyebolt. This worked ok, but looked far too heavy. The stanchions need to be no bigger than the 1/32" brass rod to look right and there was no way I could drill into the end of that, so I flattened a small bit of the rod at the end with a hammer and drilled through that. Not 100% accurate, but I think it works ok.

 

 

Just a couple more small details to attend to -the axe and fire hose and some paint touch-up, and then it's time to start working on the shrouds.

 

Many thanks for checking in.

 

David

[wmherbert]

Looking very good. I like the nice touch of making the grating for the platform. 

    I had trouble with the handrails also. I also had to install the lower rail in sections. Came out fine like yours but it seemed like there had to be a better way.

      Not a lot of rigging so you're nearly at the end!

     Have you made a stand for it?

Bill

[David Lester]

Good Morning,

Well, I think it's about time to quite adding things to this boat - those decks and roofs are pretty much full!

 

I've added many details that are not included in the kit, and I need to stop because I'm just about out of room.

It's been fun improving what is really a very basic kit. While the kit omits many of the details, at least it was reasonably accurate so far as it went and I couldn't detect any really glaring errors in what was included. I did have a bit of trouble fitting some things in, due to scale, but I think it's ok overall.

 

Here's how I made the fire hose. I started with a piece of sail fabric from another kit and painted it with watered down white glue to prevent fraying. I cut a strip 3/16" wide and then folded it in half lengthwise and glued it. This resulted in a 3/32" wide strip with one rounded over edge. I simply rolled it up and secured it with some glue. That was the easy part.

 

I had a bit of trouble with the wooden frame that holds the hose. I tried to make the frame separately and then just slip the coiled hose into place. This wouldn't work for me as I couldn't get the tiny pieces of wood to stay together, especially with the odd angles at which they meet. Then I had another one of my 3 am epiphanies and realized I was going about it the wrong way. The answer was to glue the individual pieces of the frame directly to the coil, one by one. This was very easy to do and the result is much better than my failed earlier attempts.

So that's the hull and all of its details done. Now it's on to the masts and rigging. With many models this is often only about the half way point, but this one has so little rigging, that it won't be long before I'm looking for a new project.

 

I've started the shrouds. The shrouds on the real boat have serving in a contrasting colour, so that was a fun detail to add.

 

That's all for now.

Many thanks for checking in.

David

[wmherbert]

Nicely done.

     The equipment you made for the top of the pilot house came out well. A nice touch.

      All the little odds and ends are fun to make and add a lot of interest.

    Your hose worked out well in cloth. I made mine with silkspan but it didn't roll up as smooth. I think the cloth worked out better.

    I agree, not much deck space left. 

Bill

[David Lester]

Hello All,

 

I believe I have finished! One of the attractions for me with this model was the limited amount of rigging, but it still caught me by surprise how quickly it wrapped up.

 

There isn't too much to discuss about it either. It's very straightforward. From the 360 tour on the website, I was able to sort out a couple of details that aren't evident in the plans.

 

So that's it for my St. Roch. This was quite a fun small build, not too challenging. The most fun was sourcing and making improvements on some of the poor quality fittings included in the kit.

 

Thanks again for checking in. Much appreciated.

David

 

 

[Harvey Golden]

Beautifully done!  I've been aboard, so this is especially nice to see. Your improvements are superb!

[David Lester]

Thank you Harvey! Really appreciate it.

 

I would like to visit it myself, but we never get to Vancouver anymore. Our son used to live there, so we were there quite often, but not so much these days. (We're over 2,000 miles away.)

Thanks again,

David

[ccoyle]

A striking result! Congratulations!

[Knocklouder]

Awesome work, another keeper.

Bob M.

[druxey]

Very nicely done, David. Congratulations!

[mrcc]

Marvellous!

[wmherbert]

David, great job!

    Your added details to the kit were well worth the extra time and effort 

[yvesvidal]

Beautiful and lovely model. You did a fantastic job on this BB kit.

 

Yves

[David Lester]

Thank you everyone for all the kind comments and likes!

Now I just have to find a place to put it; my collection is getting out of hand.

Thanks again,

David