Better barge corners

 

I wasn't going to mess around too much with this kit, but once the sides and ends of the cabin were fitted, the corners didn't look very good. Picture on the Petitie Properties website suggest I haven't done anything wrong either. 

To me, the solution was obvious: stick some slips of stripwood in the corner gaps, and sand them flat. Shock horror, the plan worked. I found some suitable wood, which was slightly oversize, and PVA'd it in place. Then went away and let it dry properly. 

A couple of days later, and with a sharp blade in my scalpel, the wood was trimmed back. A little sanding, and an acceptable finish was obtained. Again, not perfect, but I want to get this thing done. 

 I'm not unhappy with the result. It's one of those jobs that you do, and no one notices you've done it. But they would if I hadn't bothered. 

All is not well with the sides of the barge

 

It was all going so well. The sides of the barge looked good. I'd even found some waterslide crests to liven up the red areas from a box at Bournville. 

As a finishing touch, I gave them a light coat of matt varnish from my Army Painted rattle can. 

It dried badly. In fact, it dried too early - before hitting the model. Result: a finish that might have been matt, but has the texture of fine sandpaper. I tried to pretend that I could live with it, but after a little while decided to be honest. 

So, the red areas were given a light sanding with a very fine abrasive. I wasn't looking to remove the paint, just smooth the varnish. Amazingly, it worked OK. Not perfect, but good enough. A light brushed coat of matt, another sanding, and I was happy enough to brush (I'm not messing with spray paints for a while) satin acrylic on. 

After that, the layers were assembled, complete with glazing. OK, the results aren't perfect, but as I said at the start, the aim is to finish something, and the search for perfection will be the enemy of that. As it is, sorting this out has taught me something; mistakes often do that! 

Roof making

 

Regular readers will know I'm a fan of dry-fitting kits together to spot possible problems later in the build. 

Looking at the sides on the barge, I'm not 100% sure where they sit. Logically, the bottom of the side sits atop the sides of the hull. But there is a gap at least one layer of card could sit in. Get it wrong though, and the roof won't fit. Looking at the photos in the instructions, I think I'm right, but there's one way to be sure, make the roof. 

Work starts by putting a curve in the piece of card forming the roof. A set of metal rollers would be ideal, but mine are buried in a cupboard, so I just rolled a bit of dowel back and forth, with the card on my thigh - less chubby people can use a couple of towels. 

It worked fine, so the next job was to fit some MDF formers in, which are clipped in place as shown. Finally, a spine fits into these. I did all this quite quickly so the glue didn't have time to dry until everything is in place. The cutting of the MDF ensures very tight fits, but there is a tiny bit of movement of the MDF formers in the holes in the card. 

Speedy work ensures this isn't a problem. Using normal PVA rather than Roket card glue would have been wide too, but didn't occur to me at the time. Fortunately, I've got away with it. Luck or skill, you choose.  

Bow pen rims

 

Looking at the sides, I thought a nice brass rim around the edge of the windows would look good, but it would need to be perfect. 

It occurred to me that maybe I could run a bow pen around, with the corner of the card in between the jaws. This would keep it consistent. 

With no idea how this would work, I loaded it with neat Darkstar Molten Metal Brass, and had a go. After all, if it went wrong, I could wipe away my shame, and slap some red on top. No one would be any the wiser. 

And you know what? It worked perfectly. I was able to trace around the edges easily, and the acrylic paint flowed perfectly. I'm quite pleased with this!

 

Barge sides

 

Back to the barge! Various work projects have got in the way, but it's back on the workbench. 

There's a lot of painting going on. Also a lot of ignoring the instructions, which, if I'm honest, aren't the easiest to follow. Apparently, you are supposed to build some furniture next, but as far as I can tell, this can wait until the sides are ready. That way I'll know if it fits. We'll see how this pans out. 

Anyway, the sides are made up of three card layers, sandwiching some clear acetate. The basic idea is to make painting easier, as the shaped outer can be painted red, and then overlaid on the next one, which is green. That's clever, if not particularly prototypical, but I can live with that. 

The card is really nice quality. Sharply cut and it takes paint really well. OK, the satin green took three coats for a decent depth of colour, but that's down to the Humbrol paint as much as anything. 

Inside, I'm going for a varnished wood effect. OK, a mid-brown, but from the outside you won't be able to tell. The MDF dividers looked like they might be a problem, so I went over them twice with a AK white paint pen. After that, the brown looked great, even on the burnt ends. Mind you, the MDF absorbed the white like crazy. I'll remember its usefulness for priming in the future though. 

Heavy duty sanding

 

You know I said I wouldn't be messing around fettling this kit? It seems I lied. 

On the manufacturer's website, the hull is clearly shown as a series of slices on their finished model. I didn't have a massive problem with this, but my lining up of the hull slices wasn't as perfect as I'd like. They were good, all within 0.5mm, but you could see the differences. 

So, down to the garage, and out with the Mouse. Fitted with the smoothest paper I could find, I attacked the sides. Handily, the laser-burnt edges acted like a guide coat of paint on a car. As I sanded, I could clearly see those that were inset more than the others. In theory, once all the burnt stuff was gone, the sides would be perfect. 

A coat of sanding sealer was followed by some Humbrol 33. This showed up areas that needed a bit more work, but after a couple of sessions with Perfect Plastic Putty filler, sanding, and paint, the result looks OK. 

I'm working on the basis that perfection is the enemy of good, or at least getting the model built. It won't be a show-winner, but hopefully I'll be proud of it. At £22.99, if I really want to, I could even treat this as a test, and aim for perfection on another kit. I doubt that will happen, there's plenty more in the stash to build!

 

Layering up the hull

 

Most of the MDF parts in the Petite kit, are layers that make up the hull. 

It's a simple job, fit the first two, and then add the internal walls. PVA holds everything together, but it's important at this stage, to ensure all the parts are square. The walls provide some positive location for all the rest of the hull slices. 

 

All this is made easier by the accuracy of the cutting, and that the slices arrive loose in the bag. No busting them out of a fret, then having to sand retaining nibs away. Just add the slices with glue between them, and clamp for a nice join. 

Incidentally, the hull is 22cm long, which I think means this is a 32ft long boat/  

A little barge

 

I'm starting to get back to normal after all the events earlier in the year, and one thing I'm determined to do is build a few projects for me. No worrying about publishing, other than on this blog. A chance to rediscover the fun of modelmaking. 

First kit out of the stash is a 1:48 scale kit for a small narrowboat from Petite Properties.  

I've built enough stuff from this firm to be confident everything is going to fit together properly. I'm not in the mood for a lot of fettling. Not that this will stop me making small changes, but fighting a kit is out. 

The model is an oddball addition to the range, which is probably why it appealed to me when I spotted the photos on social media. It's not normally on the stand at model railway show, so I had to pre-order for collection. Yes, I could order through the post, but I wasn't in a rush, and chatting is more fun. It's a popular kit too, it's often out of stock, so I was lucky. 

As with all Petite kits. what we have is a set of laser-cut MDT and cardboard parts. There's some wire in here as well. Instructions are included, although everything looks pretty simple. 

The prototype is a holiday cruiser. There is something similar in the Craftline range, although Petite's is shorter.