Scratchbuilding a lifeboat box

Some model boat fittings can be bought and some are best scratchbuilt. Some probably would be bought but if you forget when placing an order, you end up scratchbuilding them.

If there are any model boat shops out there that carry a full range of fittings, they are few and far between. The nearest one to me is in Leicester, which is too far for a quick visit.

That's why I had to build the lifeboat box for the front of the my Pilot Boat the hard way.

To be fair, it's not that hard. The box is made form 2mm thick plasticard. Cut the funny shaped ends and then a long strip of plastic the length of the desired item. Slice this up to run around the ends. Size is 45mm long, 20mm high and 35mm wide. That looks about right on the model.

I did drill some holes in the bottom to let solvent fumes out.

The basic box was left to harden overnight before being filed to neaten up the joins. Then a strip of the same plastic 3mm wide runs around the edge and some more over the top and bottom. I think these are the joins between top and bottom along with the retaining straps. To be honest, I was modelling a model at this point. Bad. Bad. Bad.

Still, it looks OK to me and my version is lighter than the resin version I'd probably have bought so that's a good thing.

How do you make vents ?

No, not ranting, air vent on the Pilot Boat.

I suppose these are pretty easy in modelling terms - you buy something suitable, drill a hole in the superstructure and glue them in place.

At the front we have mushroom vents and behind, the other sort. According to the model on the stand when I bought the kit, they should face backward. Presumably if forward facing, at speed the air inflow would inflate the cabin !

What I don't understand is how anyone makes a master for these. The stalk is narrower than the gaping mouth. They have to be very hollow too - you can't supply them blind and tell the modeller to drill them out because no known drill could get narrower as the hole turns to head down the shaft.

And before some says "they come out of a mould", yes I know that, but how would you make one by hand ?

Pilot boat mast

Time to crack a job that I've been putting off for a while - the mast sticking out of the Pilot Boat roof.

As far as the kit instructions are concerned, it doesn't exist. No mention is made and the builder is left to his or her own devices to make something up. I spent a lot of time on the interweb trying to find a photo that would give me an idea. All I discovered was that all such vessels had a mast but there was no common features I could copy.

Looking at the display model and my collected photos, they all had aerials sticking out of the top and some navigation lights. Not much help really. I didn't even have a set of dimensions to work with.

All I could do is root around my tube stocks and find something that looked about right in brass. For the base, I used plastic tube drilled out so the brass was a tight, sliding fit. A baseplate with supports was knocked up in plastic.

The main structure is soldered up from bits of 1mm wire. Three aerials appears to be enough. A cross piece for... well all boat masts seem to have one although I'm not sure why.

It looks OK to me but then I know nothing. Navigation lights and a radar reflector thingy will be added in due course. At least I can move on to something else now.

Pilot Boat - Sunk

The pilot boat had made a little more progress since the last post - I built a stand for it. Sadly, had is the appropriate word.

You see there was a problem with the "kit". Namely, it was rubbish.

Putting the stand together, I noticed that the hull was not symmetrical along it's axis. Possibly this might have just been down to the flexibility of the vac-formed plastic and if I put a deck on I could pull one side in a bit making it look OK.

So I started trying to work out the deck. But I couldn't. You see the "plans" were, on investigation, little more use than doodles. Across the stern, they were the same as the hull. Along the length, they were a lot too short. And the lines along the sides didn't look like either half of the hull.

The side view made things worse. This was even shorter and also showed the deck should rise toward the bow - but by how much ? With the proportions being out there was no datum to work with. The superstructure didn't match what I had either, but at least it looked like the photos, sort of anyway.

What I need for this boat is a proper plan. If I could get one of those I could make up some bulkheads which would allow me to work out the rise of the deck and incorporate the camber that I'd seen on the other pictures of boats I'd found. But if I did that there was little chance that the plan based bulkheads would fit the hull I had.

At this point it became all too painfully obvious why the model hadn't been built. If I could get the information, scratchbuilding would be a whole lot easier for the quality of model I wanted. The best this thing would be good for is a bath time toy.

I did consider putting the boat back in the cupboard but to be honest I need the space more than a duff kit. eBay might have been an idea but how can you describe something you know to be junk accurately and sell it for enough to make it worth the effort ?

In the end I recovered the shafts and stuck the remains in the bin. All the bits I bought will be used on future projects so long term I've probably wasted less than a tenner in kit and plasticard. Perhaps that's worth it for a valuable lesson learned about buying old projects on a whim.

Which just leaves the Brede kit from the same maker. I've seen this made up and it can look nice. I also have a very detailed plan for the boat from the RNLI so I can make the bulkheads up to get the deck and hull shape right. What's the betting I flog the kit and scratchbuild the boat instead ?

Tinternet comes up trumps

Sometimes you get lucky. A thread on Model Boat Mayhem forum about HFM boat kits lead me to a link on the Westbourne Models web site which showed a boat very similar to the Pilot boat I'm building. According to the description is is a Nelson 40 pilot.

Off I headed to Google with the phrase "nelson 40 boat" which threw up a load of results including some useful pictures.

A very similar boat is far sale here.
This one has been sold.
Valonia looks pretty similar too.

There are a whole load of Nelson Pilot boats here.

The photo of the factory looks quite a lot like my workbench:



There's a nice 45 footer for sale.


And this looks very similar to what I'm building too.


Finally - here is the manufacturer, Nelson Boats !

What I tend to do with all this information is grab the photos from the web (right click on them and select "Copy") and paste them onto a page in a DTP package (Word would work nearly as well). This give me pages of photos which can then be printed out for use at the workbench.

None of the pictures show the exact boat I'm building but there will be enough common features for me to use them when I need to answer questions about details that aren't shown in the images supplied with the kit.

Propshafts

Pilot propshafts
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Once I had a nice solid hull buoyant hull - then I made some holes in it. It wasn't my fault, if this boat is going anywhere, it needs propellers sticking out of the bottom. Some rudders might be a good idea too.

This is my first model boat with twin props. Since the plans supplied with the kit are basic, and I can't find any more information out about the prototype, their location involves a little guesswork. I know how far back they go but the position across the hull has been done by eye. Lots of drawing on the plastic with a CD marker pen and peering along the boat until I was sort of happy got this right - I think (hope !).

The shafts are a pair of very nice stainless steal items which incorporate some phosphor bronze bearings in the ends. I forced some plastic tube over the ends and used this to give me something to attach the supports to.

The holes in the hull ended up being longer than expected. I wanted to keep the angle they went in as shallow as possible - as it is the line up with the motors is pretty close to spot on so at least something worked !

Filling the hull holes took three goes with Alteria plastic filler. There may be another splodge to go in once the paint goes on to get a perfect finish but at present it looks OK. Multiple coats were required because being a cellulose filler, it shrinks slightly when it dries and I was trying to use as little as possible to make tidying up easier.

Shoreham pilot boat.

Pile of Pilot boat bits
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

The pilot boat kit has leapfrogged my Brede build to make it to the workbench. I want to finish the model and enter it in the Model Engineering Show in just over a month. A Brede would be a better boat to go into this with but will take quite a bit longer to complete. This model is me easing myself gently into working at a higher level then normal - which should lead to a better lifeboat in turn.

Over the last few months I've gradually been acquiring some bits to fit the model out from various suppliers. As you can see there is quite a pile - but I'll still have to do a lot of scratchbuilding.

All this to carry on alongside the locomotive builds but in the early stages of this boat there will be a fair bit of leaving things to dry so I need something to occupy my otherwise itchy fingers !

Pilot boat

pilot project
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Now I know I have said ad neasium that I don't need any more projects. Even though an imminent change in lifestyle is going to leave me with a whole lot more time to fill, these things seem to come and find me...

But, this boat kit (OK, a few bits of vac-formed plastic, some plans and photographs) is made by the same guy who produced the Brede Lifeboat kit I'm going to do this year. And since I have a thing for orange boats (and cars but that's another story) a pilot vessel has been on my wish list for years. The two boats will look good together I'm sure.

Anyway, it was only a fiver so what the hell. I can buy the paint in bulk to save cash.

However it set me wondering. How many of these kits simple circulate through various modellers cupboards never quite making it to the workshop ?