As my old woodwork teacher told me when I was delaying gluing up an old edwardian style display cabinet in year 10 [fifth form olden times reckoning] of high school that I had made for GCE "O" level………..I will always remember the saying….

C'mon boy!…….Procrastination is the Thief of Time!……get on with the bally thing!…… he was a Welsh man, and an ex RAF fighter pilot, so swore poshly!

So this morning I glued the bilge keels on to the hulls of both boats…….somehing I had been dreading as they are so long!, and curvey!

Must say, all went well, and sticking them down into place with some very strong carpet joining tape there is just the filling of places where the wood of the keels doesn't quite mate up with the grp….

I used 30 minute epoxy on this job.As my old woodwork teacher told me when I was delaying gluing up an old edwardian style display cabinet in year 10 [fifth form olden times reckoning] of high school that I had made for GCE "O" level………..I will always remember the saying….

C'mon boy!…….Procrastination is the Thief of Time!……get on with the bally thing!…… he was a Welsh man, and an ex RAF fighter pilot, so swore poshly!

So this morning I glued the bilge keels on to the hulls of both boats…….somehing I had been dreading as they are so long!, and curvey!

Must say, all went well, and sticking them down into place with some very strong carpet joining tape there is just the filling of places where the wood of the keels doesn't quite mate up with the grp….

I used 30 minute epoxy on this job.

The tunnel affects the power with the small props Ashley……..i suppose an early form of jet drive.

Edited By neil howard-pritchard on 01/11/2022 18:16:05

All 16 sides of the 8 bilge keels have now been filled with Dolphin Glaxe fine surface filler, and curing hard, before sanding tomorrow.

I also got out my small tin of P40 glass strand reinforced "filler" and bonded in the propellor tubes into the two boats, and these have now also been left to cure until tomorrow!.

Then the next job is to fit the under deck on both boats to give them both a "tank" like rigidity and solidness before i start work on sanding the hulls down smooth, filling any irregularities and dints, bumps and "sharp edges" ready for eventual painting.

And once this has all been done, i can fit the Aframes for the aft bearings on the propeller shafts.

And once that has been done…….i can start the proper building………the detailing, which hopefully i can start sometime next week…might have it ready for a New Years Day sail, lol.

Haven't done anything for a few days on the lifeboats, as have been sorting out some gear to exchange with a friend that I was meeting in Harrogate. And even though 3 days of sorting………i still left something behind which I will now have to post.

Also have been putting off setting the "A" frames for the other lifeboat untill I had them perfectly possitioned which came just the night before I went to Yorkshire yesterday.

So this evening I have drilled the legs and pinned them, and just waiting for the glue to set before I glue them in position, making sure that the prop shafts turn very freely.

I will then back fll both sets from inside the boats with P40 to make the joints strong stiff and purposfull, and ready to take the torque of the motors and large propellers.

NOW!!!………..All the stern shaft bearings are set and so strong I've turned my lifeboat into a container ship………

Not really………just fitted the fore and aft decks of the first of the two lifeboats, using 4mm ply that was a feebee back in July from Ulverston.

I glued, timber to timber using quick grab waterproof aliphatic resin wood glue. I shall leave it for a couple or so hours, before removing all of the batteries weighing the decks down to the framework.

Then I can make the two side under decks before doing the second boat, the same way.

First boat with its sub deck totally fitted, and glue has set and cured.

Second container boat almost ready for fitting out as the fore and aft main decks have been fitted……..just JOKING………lifeboat lol.

As I said much earlier, building two of the same take little more time than building one and then another seperately. the two decks on the first boat took me around an hour and a quater yesterday afternoon, before the side decks adden last night taking just over 1.45 hours……..and that didn't include gluing and setting times individually.

This mornings cutting and setting in glue, just 20 minutes. and by the time I get back from where I am going to this morning, the glue will have set and cured and so I can cut and glue in the side decks.

And after filling the gaps between the grp bulwarks and timber decks, I can clean all of the hulls and decks up, ready for "fitting out."

The detail builds are almost ready to start!…….YIPPEEE!

Before I started the most laborious job there is when making multiple boats that is hand casting the numerous fittings that are needed to build and adourn each boat, and I must have cast over the last 3/4 days a few hundred, which now all need cleaning of flash and lumps and bumps…..but I'll get there, and do a few bags per night whilst watching tv,and there are bags and bags of fittings, I shall have to revert my attention back to the hulls.

And tomorrow I'll be back to the hulls which have had their sub decks fitted and do some filling between the grp hulls and the wooden decks.

When I asked my friend after seeing a number of very illuminating photos of the William and Kate Johnston posted on the internet whether he wanted his model built as the above boat rather than the Princess Mary, he jumped at the chance.

This gave me the chance to make a few new fittings which were privvy to the William and Kate rather than the Princess Mary.

One of these is the rather primative looking anchor windlass, which I have started fabricating from 1.5mm plasticard, and it is going well, at the moment!

You can see from the anchor windlass that is to go on to the Princess Mary, just 6 years of development down the line, why I say, primative to that supplied on the William and Kate.

The differences are just groundbreaking for the years between them, 1923-1929

The bases for the anchor chain roller and the anchor chain stopper have been fabricated tonight, and once I have raided my box of spare fittings I will add them to the bases tomorrow!

Apart from a few bolt heads and a few rivets here and there, these are ready for painting and then fixing to the deck.

yes, a brilliant material……….and not nearly as much waiting time to glue together as timber or preperation for painting, and at 10 yards out who knows wgat the fittings are made from………..but still like my varnished timbers on the old classic lifeboats.