Member postings for neil howard-pritchard

15 minutes with a block plane, an aching arm, and a blister on my thumb........and so I started to think of a better way.


And so! I took out my WORX sonic sander with one of the diamond encrusted blades, and the full panel and the parts astern of the panel took me just 5 minutes to sand down...........


And so, if the weather is as nice tomorrow as it has been the last few days, I will transfer the plug to the garden and spend the day sanding it down to a state where i can then use a delta sander with 40 and then 60/80, 120 grade grits to get a smoother finish before skimming with Dolphin Glaze surface filler [as recommended with our resident car body restorer and sprayer] before sanding again.

slowly, Slowly, SLOWLY,........ and quite monotonously, the frames have all been filled with blocks and strips of obeche'.........

That is, ALL but the holes that would form the propeller shaft tunnels, and these will be formed and shaped once the rest of the hull has been planed, shaped and sanded to a nice smooth finish...but that's for later..........once the glue has set overnight in a very hot workshop, tomorrow i shall go to our local car boot sale and see if i can pick up a decnt smoothing plane to do some damage to the blocks.............but for now, i shall have a sit down, and contemplate there to start on it.

Its nice though to look at it, and see what sort of hull it is going to turn out like.

ohhhh happy days!!!

Edited By neil howard-pritchard on 12/08/2022 15:57:02

It will all come out in the end George, but I feel more confidant in this method than plank on frame.

a beautiful model George, and she looks a good sailer too.......far better on the water than my lifeboat turned out to be, lol.

enjoy sailing her, she looks fantastic.

Edited By neil howard-pritchard on 11/08/2022 19:04:42

I have the last four frames, [two each side] at the bow to fill, and then I can concentrate on capping the tops of each frame with some 8mm thick planks from the keel to the blocks as shown on one mid section set of frames.

I also put a runner strip for resting the chequered motor factor gauze into the propeller shaft tunnels, ready for skimming with body filler.

But for now, I'll retire to my TV seat and let the glue set.

Done some more blocking up between frames this afternoon, and have come to the stage whereby if I put any more blocks on them, the first ones will not set because the upper ones dislodge them when I am tamping them in to place.......so 4 blocks maximum.

I am also getting the stage where the bilges are becoming to run flat , and as such I'll be cutting some wider and thinner plates to fit into the spaces in one piece.

Therefore a support strip needed to be added to the keelson, and these are also now glued in place, and shall leave it now untill tomorrow when I hope to finish blocking in the hull totally.

My back is now killing me constantly bending over and straightening up, so will also give that a rest before I go out again tonight to shape the port side of the cabin top.

Was looking at the photos that I was sent by Martin Kinghoward at certain parts of the plans that I didn't understand, and found one of the parts was the steering box at the stern.

It was the steering gear box through which the steering shaft to the steering wheel was attached.

And so I fabricated it from 2mm and 1.5mm plasticard, with a lift off lid, and if all goes to plan i will use it to house the steering gear servo for the rudder.

But this has to be sorted at a later date, as at the moment i'm thinking on my feet, lol.

ten minutes planing, and thn 5 minutes sanding with a delta sander and 40 grade grit and one side of the top of the cabin was looking a little more like a cabin.

much more work to do but those 15 minutes were very constructive and thought cultivating.

More tomorrow.

And whilst the 2 heavy G cramps are stopping the cabin from slipping sideways or back and forwards whilst glewing the 60lbs [27 kilos] of old batteries are maintaining a downward force to glue the cabin and engine casing together, using aliphatic resin wood glue.

Richard, its a form of bread and butter construction,the only difference being thather than having the set lines for cutting the layers to produce he hull withour using the cross sections,

this method is where you only have the cross section frames, and no set lines.

takes longer but the result is the same in the end.

As the old song says........"the first cut is the Deapest."

And so I made those first cuts this morning on both the cabin and the base engine casing.

I shall now glue the cabin to the engine casing and once set, tomorrow I shall start shaping with my small palm plane and sander.

good one Ray.........at the price i paid for it, a snip..........the plug will last forever, lol.

put it this way, Richard, if i drop it it will bounce and not fall apart, or put my finger through a plank when i sand too vigourously, haha.

A lot of pieces of obeche' board,

A lot of glue,...........

And this is what I ended up with, the main cabin hood, and the base.

And once I had cut the top in half length ways as the whole block wouldn't fit through the gate of the band saw which I used for cutting it, the curves were cut into the two parts of the cabin top using the template I had made from card.

I had miscalculated the back lower cross member, and this dropped out as I cut the sweeping curve........so had to put two blocks back in, and these are now setting using aliphatic resin.

and once the base 2 layers of the engine room casing have dried after gluing the second base layer of strips on to the solid board, that too will have to be cut length ways right down the centre so that i can cu the final part of the cabin's curve before glueing it all back together before shaping the cabin.

and down to work!

It always makes life easy if you have the right tools to do the job properly, and my Electra Bekum German made band saw is probably my most tool in my workshop, giving countless hours of dutifull and faithful work without failure over the past 30 years...i cannot stress just how good this machine is.....sod your proxxon overpriced stuff only fit for light use......if you want excellent wear and tare by chunkr stuff..........pays in the end.

So i sanded the surfaces of my obeche' planks lightly to get the rough sawn surface reasonably level and then marked out both the base and engine casing as one, and then marked out 3 cabin profiles and cut them using the band saw.

Once cut, I lightly sanded the two surfaces of each piece for a decent clamped gluing surface.

Then using some "scrap" lengths [although no timber is ever scrap until it is too small for any conceivable use] I made a 40mm boarder around one layer of the cabin cut outs which will then be glued to the base piece.

Although it will save a small piece of timber, when glueing to the base, it won't slide as much, when glueing the top three tiers and the bottom to the base, as by that time I wont have cramps or clamps with a wide enough "gate" to hold it all, so will have to use batteries as weights to glue it together.

I had paid no real attention to the superstructure i.e. the cabin and engine room casing until this morning.

It came to a point where I had glued on some more blocks into the hull frames that until those parts had set and glued, that I needed to get on with another task, and that was cutting out the timber [ more of the obeche' bought last month.

Therefore templates had to be made for marking out the obeche ready for cutting.

I made the templates after carefully measuring the plans 3 times to make sure, from framing card [3mm thick], and to get the curve in the front of the cabin cockpit I used a sheet of paper, folded down the centre, marked on one side and cut , leaving a semetrical curve before transfering to the framing card and cutting out. these two pieces are ready for transfering to the obeche', which again will be built in layers, glued together.

And now that the card is cut I can see that I will have an access of around 450 x 200mm approx hole .........more than I have had in a long while, whoopeee !!!

god i hope not,

i use gallons of the stuff lol.

Edited By neil howard-pritchard on 06/08/2022 21:21:25

IT LOOKS MESSY!!!, and it is messy with all the glue around, but once I get my sonoc rasp and block plane on it it will start to take shape.

But I have been working on the last 4 frames of the stern of the boat at the moment, and once that area has been blocked up, I will then finish all the frames from 1 to 8, before finally filling in the bow with solid blocks of obeche.

Hopefully I should have that done by tuesday at the latest.

And once that has been achieved I will then start shaping it all before turning my attention to the two tunnels for the props and shafts.

Edited By neil howard-pritchard on 06/08/2022 18:57:45

good news indeed, but why are hobby stores still selling the old stuff.

RIGHT!!!.....I'm not hearly as fit as I used to be as the last time I made a plug for a lifeboat and in a similar way my back didn't ache even half as much, but have had to give up for the day.!


I have now put 4 layers of blocks between frames 1 and 8 with the foundation blocks on the other frames......74 blocks individually measured and sawn to fit, plus bending over to fit them.

Tthank the lord for my band saw.


Who says model boat building is pleasurable......its bloody painful at times, lol.............but we'd do it whether or not.


I'll leave all those blocks to set now over night before starting on The blocks for the last five frames tomorrow.


As a side, I was asked today by a good friend why I am using wooden blocks to form my hull plug. It's very simple I said. Billing boats in the early 1960's when I built my first POF boat, the Danebrog taught me all I didn't want to know about plank on frame model construction, and sadly have been absolute carp at it ever sinse.

Plus it takes a ton of filler to get rid of my unlevel POF hulls whereas making a plug from obeche blocks can be formed in half the time I would take planking, and for me will give a far better hull......


Each to their own happiness I suppose.