Thanks Colin, yes……………not the best , and even a 20 grade mask doesn't help matters either.

I get asked this regularly Ashley

Long before red lead for anti fouling and protection of both wooden and metal hulls, there was the grean leaded paints, and i suspect you live near or on the coast yourself……..remember back to your grand dads day, and think of the majority of houses at sea side towns. they were in the majority of having their wooden doors, windows, out houses etc always painted in mid to dark green.

It was because a lead based constituant was added to the paint work to keep the salt sea air from rotting the woodwork!

As with the houses, so were the boat hulls painted with green lead for anti fouling and protection against damage from sea water, up until the very early 1930's.

Another fact that my grand father the master cabinate and pattern maker told me as a young boy.

Edited By neil howard-pritchard on 10/04/2023 16:10:47

I have now masked the bottom half of the boat up including the rudder, with a roll of parcel brown paper and masking tape.

And then I sprayed the upper part of the hull with the Vauxhall Regatta Blue,that I had mixed at a UPOL station, a lighter blue than the more modern Oxford/Baliol Blue that is used on lifeboats today!

both done, and hopefully later tomorrow I'll be able to mask up and follow RNLI practice of painting the upper belting bright red.

I went out to our "local" artist shop in St Annes this afternoon for some new brushes.

Thought the two models deserved some, and bought 4 tins of gloss 19 humbrol red, which I have used before for the belting on almost every model of classic lifeboat I have built.

Bought some nice soft "squirral" hair brushes, two straight cut, and one rounded end brush for the extreme ends to the belting.

I will get started on the four belts tomorrow, hopefully finishing by putting on the white boot topping by early evening.

beautiful bikes, and superb painting Richard………..they look brilliant. do you still have them.

Remember the suzuki and the Duke from my days of following GP racing, but cant for the life of me remember who rode Suzzi no.10 as Sheene rode no.7 but did Foggy Fogarty ride the Duke………….havent a clue who road the Honda, and always remember the MCN saying in the road test of the "widow maker" as the Kwakka was dubbed, that she was the fastest bike between petrol stations………..on a hard ride she used to return an mpg of just 17 – 20…..but what incredible bikes they were especially when triumph and norton "superbikes" as they were regarded as, the Trident and the comando were light years behind the Jap bikes.

I owned for just 4 weeks whilst in Australia, a Comando 850 Interstate, and what a bag of shackles that was……..soon moved on to a BMW R90s before leaving OZZ……….. and that was a nice bike, great handler and beautiful ballance on ozzy dirt track roads.

Edited By neil howard-pritchard on 14/04/2023 14:02:00

Painting of the upper belting has begun.

They are so large and heavy that I am painting just one side at a time until finished and dry. I will then turn them round and paint the second side tomorrow.

One small pot has done two layers of paint so far on both boats, and probably a final coat this evening after my nightly dose of M*A*S*H…………EVERYTHING stops for that prog, lol.

"Sheene was, and still is, a hero of mine. Anyone who can drill a hole in the front of his helmet so he can have a fag on the start grid gets my vote."

Saw him race a good few times, and in 1969 when I held an ACU clubmans licence I raced just once in the same race as him at Oulton, and after the start, I only ever saw him when he lapped me NUMEROUS TIMES on his Super Six, lol.

But my claim to fame is that I was once run over by him!!?

I was teaching in Preston at the time and a lad in my CDT year 10 class had entred the BP Build a car contest, model class. He won the age class of under 16's, and so he, his parents and I were invited to the prize presentation at Bordon Army camp, and then a day at the press day of the motor show at Earls Court.

I was stood oggling at the new Aston Martin le Man's race car on show, when my foot was driven [or more to the point ridden over] by no other than Barry Sheene in his wheel chair after his final crash that nearly klled him.

I looked down and my jaw dropped at seeing who it was, he looked up and said "sorry mate, not much good with 4 wheels, mind you, not much f*****g good on two wheels either"…..we stood laughig together for a good 2 minutes, before shaking hands and he moved on….

A great memory in my life, as I thought of him as a great rider and in his day almost as good as SMB Mike the bike Hailwood.

WELL, for a crap painter as I call myself, I am quite pleased with how the first of the two Barnetts has come out this evening.

And now pearched on one of the stands that I prepared earlier with pipe lagging to stop the hardened anti fouling from scratching on the bare ply uprights, I slowly took off all the masking from both the hull and the deck, and I like what I have done.

That is all that matters to me.

I will be adding some hull fittings and painting the bow gobeye ports and rope ports, plus some exhaust ports and water inlets under the hull bottom and add the boot topping tomorrow hopefully, before I can start on the second boat the same.