Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Kadet building


Kadet building
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker
Is nothing sacred ?

At Birdingbury I'd taken along the Billings Kadet kit in case anyone wanted to know how the boats on display had been built. Since most people won't have seen a model boat kit, never mind poked around inside the box, it's a good idea to take one along to help explain things. During the weekend the box was opened several times for the benefit of visitors, so it was well worth adding to the load in my van.

However someone else was examining the kit - my Dad. In fact he had a good look at it and like what he saw. The hull and deck seemed to fit very well. The instructions looked simple. The fittings were nice.

So when we packed up, instead of returning to my kit maturing pile, it found its way onto his bench.

More detailed inspection showed things weren't quite as simple as expected - the fist parts to fit are an inner base to fit all the mechanical bits to, and under this a couple of triangular pieces that fit between this and the hull underneath. After due consideration, these later parts have been ignored, the edges of the base beveled and then glued in place with 5-Star adhesives epoxy. This seems to work very nicely and strengthened up the vac-formed plastic hull.

The deck has been fixed with the same glue. Once it went off but before drying those clips were removed so they didn't become part of the boat !

So, my kit pile has gone down a little and another boat will soon be launched. I think this is progress. In the meantime I will put a lock on that cupboard...

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