The 40 year old boat project

40 year old model boat
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Let me introduce possibly the oldest model boat never to have sailed in anger.

40 years ago this month a plan appear in Model Maker magazine for a Vosper boat. My Dad liked the look of it and started to build himself a model.

The boat was 2/3rds complete and then work stopped. For years it lived in various unsuitable places including a shed drawer. Amazingly it survived reasonably intact.

A couple of years ago the model found an indoor home and has since been restored and nearly finished. One of the jobs I have carried out over the Christmas period is to spray the main colours. This is a bigger job than it should be as my Badger 200 airbrush doesn't really push out enough paint for a job this size. The results are OK though.

The motor and radio gear are now fitted, something that couldn't have been contemplated in the 1960's with radio control costing many weeks wages for a single channel !

All that's left to do is for the finishing touches to be applied and the ice to melt on the local boating lake. Once we have the maiden voyage I'll post some more pics.

After 40 years, it sails !

40 year old boat on the water !
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

The 40 year old boat makes it to the water. And it was great. No nasty sinking and good performance. Worth the wait. Considering the history of this model it was magic to see it buzzing around and creating a wake.

The only problem was that initially the motor worked intermitantly. Sometimes fine, sometimes it just sat an buzzed. I noticed that the sterring servo was kicking when the motor should be running and re-routed the aerial wire toward the front of the boat.

This helped but when I fed the wire out of the side and wrapped it around the "handle" on top performace was perfect. There are a number of aerials on the prototype and it looks like these are going to have to be more than deceorative.

Time to fit the details.

Puffing on open water

puffer on lake
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

The final big test for the Puffer is to get it on the lake. Trying it out on a pool is fine but if anything fails or falls off you can reach over and do something about it. On the lake there is no chance unless a deep paddle & swim in muddy water is contemplated.

So with some trepidation the boat was launched for the first time.

And it works. Pretty much.

OK, I need some more weight at the back as it is still a little high – burying the propeller a bit more will help especially in reverse. It’s not that I want to go backwards much, just be able to slam the brakes on without spraying water everywhere.

The Electrolize speed control needs more adjustment as well. It doesn’t seem happy running the motor slowly. We’ve got an identical unit in the 40 year old boat where it works well but then that boat runs at speed all the time.

Finally the propeller will be changed for a brass one. The whitemetal version works but there is a lot of noise from the drive and I think it’s cause by an unbalanced prop. Hopefully the brass one will be quieter and, if the stuff I read in magazines is to be believed, give more power.

On the plus side the boat shrugs off even a stiff breeze with hardly any listing. Best of all though it looks superb on the water. My Dad sailed for most of the time and he was entranced, weaving around the water for nearly three-quarters of an hour. We both love the boat and hope that’s it’s first trip on the water is one of many – a fitting tribute to the original builder.

Lovely day

Two boats 18-11-06
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

This morning saw a bit of a first. We took two boats (Minty & the 40 year old boat) to the lake. Sailed both and had no problems whatsoever. The boats launched, tootled around for 30 minutes or so and then came out. The weather was lovely, cold with a bright sun and no wind. Model boating isn’t just a summer hobby !

Minty’s new coupling worked well. She has a nice turn of speed, reasonably fast but no scary. You don’t have to concentrate too hard to avoid the bank or other craft. Good thing too as the pair of dogs living on the site decided that we had nothing better to do than kick their football.

The duration of run is very impressive. I sailed pretty solidly for 30 minutes and there was more in the tank (battery). I suspect that another 10-15 mins wouldn’t be out of the question. This makes the boat ideal for regatta days when the water is busy. Since our lake is on the small side half a dozen boats mean “near-misses” are common.

At the end of the day I have built what I wanted. A model that can be quickly charged and taken out for a pleasant sail if the weather looks good. No fuss or setting up, just enjoyable sailing.

Stuff from the scrap box

Aerial
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Still trying to improve the radio range on the 40- year old boat (It really needs a name) I’ve managed to use one of those bits that we all keep thinking it will come in useful one day.

I rescued the aerial from a cheap radio controlled toy. It’s been sitting in my pen pot for years. I’ve used it for clearing nozzles a few times. Now with the addition of a base (spare end of a transmitter control stick) and some K&S brass tube we have a whip aerial. The prototype had two of these but I’ve only got enough wire for one at present. If I source some more it will get the second.

The aerial has been wired in to the loop antenna already fitted. Hopefully this addition and some suppression on the motor will mean we can control the boat properly from the other side of the lake.

I love spray cans

On a project yet to be introduced to you dear reader, I have been spray painting. Since the model is a largish boat I have been using a red oxide car spray paint.

Wonderful.

When I sprayed the hull of the 40-year old boat, I used my airbrush - a Badger 200. This takes forever as the airbrush, while a fine tool for most of the work I do, simply doesn't chuck out enough paint for anything a metre long.

It's always been a rule that airbrushes are the "proper" tool with aerosol cans from Halfords being a poor second only used by amateurs. Wrong. Airbrushes are great but they aren't a panacea. Pick the right tool for the job regardless of what the "experts" tell you.

Binnie slate wagon

 

Here it is. The kit that launched the Binnie empire. Moulded in ABS, and glass-filled nylon, a kit for the Ffestiniog 2-ton slate wagon. 

Reintroducing this kit has involved 40-year-old moulds and many burnt fingers from the manufacturer. As a piece of history, I felt that with my Garden Rail Editor jacket on, I ought to buy one and have a go. Despite being a limited-production kit, my parcel arrived in under a week, so I'm putting the canal boat aside for a couple of days to put the thing together. 

The instructions say "Trimming of flash will be required before assembly" - a legacy of those old moulds. My photo shows the worst bit, the one that would show up on camera best, and indeed, the first job is to clean things up. I don't think this is any worse than kits in the old days. Modern plastic manufacture means we rarely see excess material, but once upon a time, modellers just took it in their stride. 

A sharp scalpel blade and an abrasive stick took care of the worst of it, so I could move on to assembly. 

Varnish

Varnish
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

The 40-year old boat needs a box. So when we built the case for Pigeon Pie we built a second box. Which has, as the nature of this project, sat around unfinished. The hardware was screwed in place to test everything worked but it still needed varnish.

So I pulled my paintbrush out and started. The inside received Two coats a first coat covered the bottom and back. Paining a box has to be done in stages as you have to sit it on one face.

The painting happens outside and since I did this in the evening I decided to leave it out to dry. No chance of rain tonight.

In the morning, “Oh b****r, it rained.”.

Boat Show Day 2

Crowds
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

The crowds were huge and the people chattier. I managed to sail Little Miss Minty but couldn't persuade Sooty to play ball.

We've discovered quite a few modellers who live withing spitting distance of the club (please don't we have enough water already) and so will hopefully pick up a few new members. The DVD I put together showing a few shots of last years activities has attracted a lot of attention.

You can't help everyone though. One visitor wanted a boat suitable for his grandchildren to sail. He fancied joining our club to sail it. Since a quick result was required, he was pointed to Howes to buy a RTR fishing boat, a bargain at £99. Later he came back sans model having decided it wasn't for him and being assured that if he turned up at the shop there would be more to choose from.

I explained the problems with cheap boats R/C - that it works on 40 or 27mhz and swamps the frequencies so he couldn't sail with anyone else. The suggested model had crystal controlled radio which avoided any problems. He suggested it was a finished model and he "wanted to be able to put his stamp on it" to which I replied that there wasn't any reason not to do this as he could re-paint and detail it to his hearts content. As a beginner he'd start with something that worked and be able to pick up the skills later. Also at the price you wouldn't do any better buying a kit. I knew from the earlier discussion that he'd never built anything before.

Pretty quickly it became obvious that what was required was cheap. The boat would be (now be) for a 7 year old and private water was (suddenly) available. Fine, so a scale boat wasn't ideal so how about a Slingshot - the kids could learn to race and no ones frequency would be swamped. It's a good little boat and not to expensive at £39. He still wasn't sure.

I doubt we'll see him again. And we hadn't even mentioned that there was a membership fee !

Model Lifeboat Day 2016

No-one likes car parking duty much but as I own a hi-viz jacket and am quite happy to stand around being useful, I volunteered to do it for the KMBC lifeboat day this year. Apart from a tantrum from one of the members who wanted to park next to the water rather than 30 feet away so those with boats could have prime position, it went very well. A lovely morning in the countryside pointing vehicles at one of three areas in the sunshine.

Once we had filled the space enough that any latecomers would have to work it out themselves, I ditched the yellow coat and headed down to the lake to enjoy the orange boats. A rough count suggested that there were almost 40 of many different designs and sizes.

A highlight was an Aerokits Solent class.

I've always though this to be a rather boxy and ugly boat, but once fully detailed, it comes alive. I suspect all the previous models I've seen have just used the supplied bits, whereas this builder (who is also a railway modeller) has gone to town making his own fittings. Now I want one.

In the afternoon, there were talks from RNLI people. The first involved owning a Rother lifeboat as a classic vessel. The group of friends who do this take it on fundraising trips to show an old RNLI craft. The highlight was the very wet Royal Flotilla a couple of years ago but there have been many enjoyable trips beside this. Owning a real lifeboat sounds fascinating, if a lot like owning a classic car with all the trials and tribulations but with an added restriction on where you can take it. No chance of doing that around here, you need more water than a canal!

The second talk was on the new Shannon lifeboat. Quite a detailed look around both the boat, tractor and trailer. All of these are really impressive bits of engineering.

The highlight of this talk was a final bit of video. The Shannon can be retrieved from a beach. Getting it there is very impressive.

Now THAT is how you park a boat. Something many of our members have demonstrated in the past when attention wavered!

An excellent day with fine cake thanks to both the boat and model railway club. You can see my photos on Flickr.

International Large Model Aircraft Rally - RAF Cosford

A bit of a departure for me this one. It's all my Dad's fault. Once upon a time he was a youth interested in aircraft. Time in the Observer Corps and lots of illicit visits to airports, the sort of thing you'd get arrested for now and nearly did then, followed and explains why his photos are of things with wings and propellers rather than wheels and buffers.

Anyway, we'd both seen photos of larger model aircraft and really fancied seeing the real thing. When I say large I should explain that in this case size really does matter. You need a 6ft span before you don't get laughed out of this club. Get to 20 feet and people really take you seriously.

Cosford is easily reached from Leamington thanks to a stunningly fitted out Wrexham and Shropshire train. When we arrived it was a bit drizzly but even so there were a couple of jets buzzing around visible in the distance. And when I say jets, I don't mean planes that look like jets with windmills stuck on the front. I mean model jets with real jet engines inside them for power. They could shift too and sounded fantastic too. Well, fantastic is your idea of quality sound is a small jet engine on full chat screaming around a few feet up in the air.

Entry was 9 quid, which probably seems pricey to model railway enthusiasts but I doubt hiring an airfield is cheap and you have to do and awful lot of health & safety work to put on this sort of event so paying for the miles of orange fencing has to be covered somehow.

We walked across to the event and were surprised just how bit it was. At the time the jets had been replaced by a couple of bi-planes complete with Cindy doll wing walkers. These waved both their arms and  legs. It was quite funny to see them waving to the crowd as the planes taxied back to the flight line. They made smoke (the planes not the Cindy's) too just like a proper aerobatic team. From the ground ti was difficult to tell these were models.

At a guess there were at least a couple of thousand people visiting, possibly double that. Someone later told me that there were over 200 planes on display too. I can well believe this and it's a whole lot more than the dozen or so we expected. Trade was pretty comprehensive too, at least 40 tents were on hand to provide shelter during the showers and relieve people of their money.

The day improved quickly and the 4 ice creams vans on hand did good business. For me the highlight was the Victor and Vulcan bombers in the air. While appreciating the grace and shape of the Vulcan, the Victor always looked a bit odd. To see one fly though, even if it was a miniature (18ft span) version, was a sight to behold. It looked a dream in the air. Pity that all morning the commentator referred to it as a Valiant. Presumably during lunch someone dragged him to the Cold War Gallery where they have examples of the real thing and explained...

What I don't understand though is what makes anyone wake up in the morning and say, "I fancy building a half sized biplane. I've got an old microlight engine in the shed I could power it with." Nor how after three years building, you can power it up and point the front end skyward. There were two crashes during the day, a Foker triplane was completely lot thanks to a radio problem and  a WW1 British biplane crunched repairabley as it's owner tried to land it in cross winds. These guys aren't afraid to fly though. rarely was there only a single aircraft in the sky, many times you could see half a dozen or more. Most memorably were the air racers with 10 people flying around an oval course at the same time !

The range of prototypes was amazing too. A couple of airlines for example - Comet and 737 (I think), or a weird prototype bomber. Lots of WW1 planes but very few duplicates. Power came from both IC and electric engines. A Flying Fortress had a sound system fitted so the drone sounded like the real thing and covered the silent brushless electric motors ! Several planes did more than just fly with bombs and parachutists emerging from underneath.

This was like a proper old fashioned air show. But one with planes from all ages. If inspired, it was one you could anticipate taking part in next year too. There are quite a few almost ready to fly aircraft for sale. By the time you've kitted one out I doubt you see much change from 500 quid but them when you think of the price of a good model boat or railway layout, or worse a classic car, then the prices look very reasonable. For the scratchbuilder entire forests of wood were on sale and it's pretty obvious that most of the models in the sky owed more to this than and Chinese factory. Another thing spotted was that the age of the modellers building and flying the planes was quite a lot younger than that seen at model railway, boat or engineering exhibitions. Maybe this is the future !

To give you an idea how good this event was, we'd arrived at about half eleven and planned to get a look at the museum during the day. We got half an hour before it closed at 6pm. Next year we'll go earlier and forget about the real planes. They will be there another day.

I took a lot of photos. Some of them are here

Large Model Association website

RAF Cosford

IPMS Telford 2017

The first lesson I learned last weekend was that buying an advance ticket is a good idea.

I learnt this as I stood in the queue for admission to the IPMS show, arriving ten minutes after the event opened its doors. I waited for 40 minutes. Next to a family with an annoying, whiny child.

The reason for all that waiting was the huge number wanting to visit. Indeed, this was a bumper year according to the organisers. I'm glad I didn't get there 10 minutes later, they would have been standing for an hour.

Inside, there were over 140 traders waiting for me and tens of thousands of models to look at. It's a daunting prospect.

To be honest, I could ramble on about all this, but you'd rather cut straight to the photos. Instead I'll just say that much of the day was an exercise in denying myself things. 

I denied myself several plastic kits:

• Revell Visible V8 for £45 - Massive box to carry and then store until I got around to it. 
• 22 inch Eagle Transporter - £130 (RRP £300) but another big box, big project and I'd really want the turned aluminium nozzles with are another £150
• A studio scale SHADO mobile for £550 - OK, if funds and storage space were more generous. Who wouldn't want one?
• 4 model boat kits in a box £10 - Slightly random selection of scales and not very detailed. Useless in many ways but fun. 
• Airfix B type bus kit £10 - Looks fun but what would I do with it? 
• Italeri Mk2 transit van kit £20 - Less than 2/3 normal price and I'd like to build it a lot, but not yet. 
• Airfix 60s racing Alfa romeo £12 - It just looked pretty on the box. Put it back...
• Skyvan kit. I don't do aircraft. No, I don't

And there were loads of others. The trouble with me is that I can't wander around a show like this without being tempted. Everywhere I see things that would be great fun to build. I just have to keep telling myself that I have more than enough projects. 

I also had to resist eating lots of sweeties. Most of the stands seem to have a bowl at the front to tempt visitors. The Brussels model club did get me with the marzipan cakes though. 

As it was, I came away with a vintage Lindburg motorised tugboat kit. It looks big enough for small radio control and will be fun. An added advantage was that the box was just a bit too big for my rucksack so constantly reminded me I had spent money and should avoid spending too much more. 

That and a Revell beach buggy, simply because I can't justify the old Airfix version I really want and it was only £5.99. 

There are some tools and other bits too, but I'll mention them in the future. 

In the meantime, I had a really good day and I took some photos. Head over to Flickr to see them. 

Next year, I'll be the one with an advanced ticket in my pocket!