Moonbeam

[Ian GardnerParticipant @iangardner62867]

Good work Mattias and I hope you enjoyed your gigs. Music is what has kept me out of the workshop a lot of the summer but as things are quietening down I hope to get a bit more done. I find a lot of time is spent in just keeping the repertoire up to scratch.

Looking forward to following more progress on Moonbeam.

Ian

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hello Bob,

And thank you very much! Yes, I'm sure Santa'll be around, but I very much doubt he will bring anything model boat related; he usually doesn't around our place, as my neither my wife nor I find it much fun to buy Christmas presents to order for each other (if one does that, one might as well dispense with the whole rigmarole and just transfer some money to the other's account), while my wife finds that I'm a particular enough about what tools or other stuff I use that it is rather tricky for her to know what to buy me unless I point it out very specifically — and we'd just agreed that that's no fair and no fun.

Anyhow, having decided on the position of the mast base ring, I pricked out its flange holes on the deck. The instructions say to secure the base ring with wood screws, but as I think it would look much nicer with hex heads …

… I decided to use M2 bolts instead. I therefore cut M2 threads in the flange holes …

… and then drilled and tapped the corresponding holes into the mast support block.

Obviously, such fine threads cut into wood won't be all that strong, but with the whole mast step reinforced by a brass tube that will of course eventually be epoxied into place, I don't really think it'll matter one way or the other, so I'll go for optimum looks here rather than maximum strength.

Anyway, the mast step tube and base ring were once more offered up …

… and a 3 mm line above the base ring marked with 3 mm washi tape …

… to give an initial cutting guide for the mast step tube …

… which was subsequently cut to length, and dryfitted once more.

As can be seen, the 1/2" tube is a nice slide fit into the mast step tube …

… as is the actual mast blank, which also has a 1/2" diameter — which is of course why I've gone with imperial measure brass tubes rather than metric, as I would normally have done.

Anyway, the mast base ring was now glued to the mast step tube with 24 hour epoxy, using the pin to ensure correct alignment.

To be continued …

Mattias

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Nice to see the bits and pieces being added to the build, Banjo

I'm a bit surprised that the mast is made of ……Brass?

Sorry to nit pick, Banjo

Apart from adding weight, topside, fitting the fittings will be messy?

Don't take offence, it's only me being me

Will watch with added interest

Bob

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Thank you very much, Ian! Yes indeed — the gigs have been very good! If you're interested, there are a few videos from a festival we played in the Netherlands back in September available here: **LINK** …

Don't worry, Bob — it is not the mast that is made of brass, just the mast step! It may have looked as though it'd be all brass while I was dryfitting the entire 12" piece of tube, but that was just a temporary phenomenon. All of my cunning plan will be revealed in these next few images …

While the epoxy was going off, I got out the micro lathe, and centre drilled one end of the mast blank (which is most certainly from wood) …

… so that I could insert a short length of 2.5 mm brass rod and secure it with some CA glue.

This in turn allowed me to sort of set the mast blank up in the lathe. The centre through hole in the lathe is only 10 mm, so there's no way I could get the mast to fit through there, and anyway the wood is too soft to be set up in a jaw chuck, as the wood would be dented straight away. Also, the mast blank at 898 mm long is about 15 mm too short compared with the measurements given on the plans, so I need to be able to use every last mm of it.

With some foam wrapping added between the blank and the lathe cradle (with which I'd replaced the headstock) to protect the wood from whipping against the cradle, and a no-too-tight rubber band to hold everything in place, I was able to set the mast turning at fairly low revs …

… and cut down the bottom 19 mm of the mast base by 0.7 mm, i.e. two times the 0.014" thickness of the 1/2" brass tube …

… that could now be slid over the base of the mast to make a collar! To partially mitigate the too-short blank, I left the bottom 11 mm of the brass tube open, thereby making the whole thing that much longer; however, once the mast has been assembled, I will fill this in with some Milliput.

In any case, I now have a brass collared mast end that is a nice slide fit into the brass mast step …

… and when the mast is let go off, it sits very nicely of its own accord at the rake indicated by the plans.

As you can see, Bob, the mast is thus mainly made from wood as it should be, and I don't think that the few extra grams of weight added by those couple of inches of brass tube will make any discernible difference at all

Once the mast step and base ring have been epoxied (and bolted) in place, I think that this should provide a sufficiently precise and stable stepping of the mast.

To be continued …

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 29/11/2016 10:08:24

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Ha! Ha!…..I should'a known better!…….Brass mast indeed!

I like your plastic foam outboard bearing idea……..I sometimes clamp a block of wood with a sharpened screw as a centre…………Somewhere handy………..For sanding etc

Have you had a trial float in the bath yet?

Bob

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Ha!……..You've been spotted……Fidgity!

Sounds nice

Is Trad Jazz popular in Belgium?

I used to play the trumpet in my teen years……..Eddie Calvert style……..Remember him at all?

Pity the poor neighbours!

Bob

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Indeed, Bob: Fidgety — the banjo player who won't sit still ….

Trad Jazz is reasonably popular in Belgium, although not massively so. There's a fairly thriving market for the straw-hats-and-striped-vests brigade doing village fêtes and corporate functions, while the (more serious, as it were) jazz club scene, where we mainly play, is slowly dwindling.

Eddie Calvert indeed — Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White and all that, well, not jazz, but, well … all that golden trumpeting

No post-painting trial float yet, no, although I might do one next week. We're having the common parts of the building re-wired for electricity, which includes my workshop as that is the old caretaker's kitchen that I rent from the Commonhold, so I will need to clear a few things away for better access and may also chose to evacuate some of the potentially vulnerable stuff like my models upstairs to our flat.

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 29/11/2016 11:38:47

[Ian GardnerParticipant @iangardner62867]

I enjoyed the music Mattias- I have saved the link so I can go back and listen to more! We have just come back from playing at a day centre here in Exeter- loads of fun! Do we call you 'fidgety' now? I can see why you have that sobriquet!

The mast step looks great by the way- getting back to boats.

Ian

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Thank you very much, Ian — I'm glad to hear you liked it!

As for Fidgety, well, to be honest, no, if I may have my druthers; I can't say its a monniker that I'm all that taken with …

But, as you say: getting back to boats …

With a router bit, I cut grooves in the mast base ring to make sure that the bolt heads will pass all the way down to make contact with the flange, and also put a bead of medium strength CA around the upper edge of the base ring, to smooth the joit with the brass tube.

While that was set aside to dry, I began looking at the top of the mast. As already mentioned, the mast blank that came with the kit was a tad too short — 898 mm where, according to the measurements given on the plans, it should have been 913 mm long. The problem was already partially addressed by my adding the mast foot brass made to extend further down than the actual wood, but still the whole came up short. Again according to the plans, the top of the round part of the mast should sit 895 mm above the deck with a further 6 mm high part above that, squared off to 8×8 mm for the mast top plate to fit around, giving a total mast height above deck of 901 mm..

However, the top of my mast blank ended 894 mm above deck, and if I were to follow the instructions and create the 8×8 mm square-off out of that, the round mast top would end up at 888 mm, i.e. a full 7 mm too low. While 7 mm is not all that much, I would still much rather stick with the correct measurements in order not to run into any problems later on with making up and fitting the sails.

I therefore decided to make the mast the necessary 7 mm taller by adding some 8×8 mm square stuff that I happened to have in my stock of timber.

Said and done: I first centre drilled a series of gradually larger round holes into the top end of the mast, until I had a hole 7 mm in diameter and maybe 40 mm or so deep. I then filed out the opening until it was square and would just take the 8×8 mm stuff.

Next, I filed the end of the 8×8 mm stuff to a taper until I had a good slide fit into the hole (which I did not bother to try to file square all the way down — it is so much easier to create a taper on the insert) …

… secured the end of the round dowel against splitting with some tightly wound masking tape, and glued the square stuff in place.

Once the glue had gone off completely, the surplus square stuff was used to set the mast up in the lathe again, where the top 9 mm of the round dowel was recessed by +/- 0.7 mm …

… to take a brass collar. The primary purpose of this collar is of course to reinforce the top of the mast, and guard against pressure from the sails on the insert creating cracks in the mast dowel. However, by making the collar 10 mm high, and thus 1 mm proud of the end of the round dowel, and then cutting of the square stuff at a further 6 mm, I now also have a mast with the exact measurements from the plans.

With the square stuff added, the mast suddenly had dedicated directions in relations to the fore-and-aft and athwartship lines, so I lifted the whole model down onto the floor, where I could better see the top, and set about adjusting the mast, base collar and mast step until everything was lined up just so.

Using the existing holes in the step and collar, I then proceeded to drill through the actual mast at the base.

The pin vice was more than sufficient to get me in to the middle of the mast, but there I ran into the brass rod I'd previously inserted in order to set the mast up in the lathe, so for the final drilling I had to resort to the rotary tool, but in any case I now have a mast that can be pinned into its correct position.

To be continued …

Mattias

 

Edited By Banjoman on 01/12/2016 08:52:59

Edited By Banjoman on 01/12/2016 09:21:50

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

The final job last night was to fettle and slightly enlarge the round holes in the upper and lower crosstree plates, and also the shroud top slip bracket, and dryfit these …

… together with the top mast blank.

To be continued …

Mattias

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Yesterday, I cut the topmast blank to length, and then set it up in the micro lathe and tapered the top half.

As with the mast, I also cut a rebate in the last part of the lower end, and fitted a brass tube collar, primarily to reinforce the hole for the topmast fixing pin that will hold the lower end in position against the trestle tree.

I then dryfitted the crosstrees once more …

… and rechecked the complete mast and topmast assembly.

To be continued …

Mattias

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Excellent photos Mattias, really illustrate very well how you are doing the job.

Colin

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Warmest thanks, Colin!

I don't know about the proverbial 1,000 words, but I do find that the pictures make it so much easier to describe things, and am very glad to hear that they facilitate matters at the receiving end as well

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 02/12/2016 12:17:28

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Well, spar production continues! Next up to be tapered was the bowsprit …

… where, instead of a brass collar for reinforcement, I decided to line the pin hole with a short length of 3 mm diameter brass tube …

… to ensure against said hole turning oval over time.

I also note that where the mast is quite tall and rather slender, the adjectives that spring to mind to describe the bowsprit are more along the lines of short and stubby …

To be continued …

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 04/12/2016 21:17:07

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

I mainly tend to work with brass tube and rod in metric sizes — apart from being more widely avialable this side of the waters, they also require less mental agility on my part — but for certain things imperial mesaures come in handy, such as here, for reinforcing the boom swivel plate assembly.

The deciding factor here was the fact that the gooseneck swivel fitting has a threaded (I dare say with a BA thread, although I haven't actually verified that) swivel shaft that is too large to fit the 2.1 mm i/d of a 3 mm brass tube but would rattle loose in the 3.1 mm i/d of a 4 mm brass tube. It is on the other hand a perfect slide fit into a 1/8" brass tube with 0.014" wall thickness.

I therefore got myself some 1/8" and 5/32" inch tubing, drilled out the holes through the swivel plates to take the 1/8" tube, and then slid a short length of the 5/32" tube over it to act as a distance and a support between the two plates.

The whole assembly was then glued together with 24 hour epoxy …

… and, once that had gone off, also epoxied in place on the mast.

I think that this will both make the plate assembly stronger and provide a more wear resistant bearing for the swivel fitting than the naked white metal would have done.

As mentioned the other week, the commonhold areas of the building I live in is currently being rewired for electricity, including my workshop, and so to guard against any unfortunate incidents or accidents, I have brought the hull up into our flat for safe keeping while the work goes on.

I therefore took the opportunity to check the accuracy of the waterline in the bathtub …

… and was pleased to find that she sits as nicely on the waterline as I could have hoped for …

To be continued …

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 07/12/2016 07:22:40

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Hi Banjo

That was a stroke of good fortune, seeing the calculated waterline being correct on the first floatation test?

Or was it down to pure skill, on your part?………Of course it was……..I hear you say

Are the sails supplied finished in the kit or are we going to be treated to a demonstration of your sewing skills?

Bob

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hello Bob,

Let's call it a combination of planning and luck! If you look back a bit in the thread to when I ballasted the hull, what I did then was to draw on a temporary waterline based on the measurements given on the plans, after which I put the hull into the bathtub and added ballast until the hull sat in the water at the marked-out line.

So far, so good. My temporary waterline markings of course disappeared when preparing the hull for paint and under the primer coats, so when the time came to mask off the actual waterline I decided to again mark out the line based on the measurements off the plans in the hope that this would produce a result that tallied with how deep the by now securely and permanently fixed ballast would lower the hull into the water. And — it did!

No ready-made sails were included, just fabric, so at some later point you shall indeed see me bring out my trusty old 1960s vintage Huskvarna sewing machine for an attempt at the model sailmaker's art. If I fail miserably, I can always fall back on buying a ready-made set from Nylet (they specifically list a set of vintage style sails for the Moonbeam kit), but hopefully it won't come to that — I did in fact have top grades in sewing and textile handicraft at school …

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 07/12/2016 08:57:10

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Build time has been a bit sparse on the ground lately, but at least the electricians have now finished their work, so I've been able to return to my workshop and managed to snatch the occasional moment.

Among the odd jobs to get sorted was fettling the white metal fittings for the bowsprit, after which I drilled the deck and underlying support plate to take the wood screws that'll secure them …

… after which it was time to set up the first small batch of fittings …

… to be painted white.

Another small job sorted was to drill the top of the mast to take a short length of 1/8" brass tube, which was then glued in place …

… so that the top shroud slip bracket can now be securely pinned in position.

Once the paint had dried properly I also epoxied and screwed the bow sprit rings in place …

… filled in the screw heads with a small amount of MIlliput …

… and painted these fillings white, too.

The boom swivel plate assembly has also had its top and bottom joints filled in with small amounts of Milliput, while the whiole assembly has been further secured to the mast by drilling for and inserting an M3 hex head bolt …

… after which the mast step was also epoxy glued and bolted in place.

To be continued …

Mattias

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

On the upper face of the trestle tree are supposed to go two white metal support blocks to hold the top mast shroud spreader in place; these, however, seemed to me to be a tad too much on the weak side for any load bearing job, and I therefore decided to replace them.

To this end, I began by tapping the already existing holes through the trestle tree plate to take 6 mm long M2 bolts.

I then prepared a blank from which to make the support blocks by soldering together two short lengths of 2×8 mm brass bar to make it 4 mm thick.

One surface was then punch marked …

… and the blank drilled through twice …

… to produce a pair of 2.5 mm holes with their centres 10 mm apart.

The blank was then sawed off through the middle, and the two resulting pieces temporarily bolted together …

… and, after filing and sanding all the surfaces equal, 1.6 mm holes were drilled into the centre of each base …

… and then tapped to an M2 thread.

Finally, the excess material was roughly sawed off …

… and the bolted-together pieces rounded off with a file and against a sanding drum in the Dremel …

… to make up two support blocks that can be fastened to the trestle tree by screwing them onto the ends of the extruding M2 bolts.

Before I secure them in place with some epoxy in addition to the bolts, I shall sand them a wee bit thinner, and also round off all the upper edges, but they already fit and should be a fair bit stronger than the original white metal parts.

To be continued …

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 14/12/2016 09:41:39

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Next I set the two support blocks up side to side on a small block of wood with some double sided tape …

… and proceeded to file and sand them about 0.8 of a mm thinner each, and then rounded off the edges slightly before glueing and bolting them in place on the trestle trees.

As part of preparing the top plate and trestle trees, I've also began looking at how to secure the rigging blocks. According to the plan and instructions, this should be done by inserting and glueing bent loops of 1.5 mm brass wire in the right places. However, very early on I had decided not to use the rather clunky cast white metal blocks that came with the kit, but to replace these with quality yachting blocks from CAP Maquettes.

The end shackles of these blocks need vertically oriented loops to hang from, though, rather than the horizontal ones that would result from following the instructions. I therefore drilled single holes at each end of the top plate, and then, carefully and gradually, screwed in eye screws. In the after end, this will be allowed to go thriugh as shown here, as that will further help secure the top plate to the mast …

… while the front end eye screw had to be cut off, as the top mast must be able to move up and down through this hole.

After cutting off the spreader stay to length, I glued it in place with some thin CA glue and also glued on the two end pieces through which the top mast shrouds will pass. I then drilled 1.2 mm holes down through the top of both support blocks and through the spreader stay, pinned the holes with short lengths of 1.2 mm brass rod and finally secured it all with a touch of solder. The CA glue joints are quite strong, but just in case this should make absolutely sure that there will never be any risk of a lateral movement of the spreader stay under the pressure from the shrouds..

At the forrard end of the trestle trees I did add the loop of brass wire as instructed, as the function of this particular loop is only to serve as a fairlead. I also added a dollop of Milliput to fill in a small gap in the white metal casting just where the bent brass rod had been inserted.

To be continued …

Mattias

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

If you will pardon the expression, Banjo, but it's a compliment really………

You are making a "Silk Purse out of a Sow's Ear"

Meaning you are doing a quality job with shoddy materials

The so called "shoddy materials" I refer to, are the clumsy die cast fittings

They are not really shoddy, it's just that they are slightly oversize, being diecast

But that's what the kit has supplied……..So your build is quite in order

Hope you can excuse my occasional bluntness, but I think you understand

Can we wish you and your family the best of seasons greetings and all the best for the coming year

And I'm sure that includes all forum members too

Bob

Many thanks for this very nice card go to Sreve B of the Buxton Club

 

 

Edited By Bob Abell on 19/12/2016 09:32:36

Edited By Bob Abell on 19/12/2016 09:46:32

Edited By Bob Abell on 19/12/2016 09:47:31

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Hi Mattias

Yes I'm with Bob on this one, the quality of your metalwork far exceeds that of the kit castings

Regards Ray

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hello Bob and Ray,

Thank you very much for your kind words! I don't know that I'd go that far — yes, some of the castings are a tad on the clumsy side, but then I think they have to be to be able to take the strain. When I decide to replace things, it is more because I fear exactly that, i.e. that they would not necessarily be strong enough, or, as is the case with the rigging blocks, when I think that they will not be as functional as they ought to be.

And then again, there exists a prototype build plus any number of identical kits aleady built out of the box that I'm sure sail very well indeed and have proven more than adequate to take the strains involved. But there one goes: ya pays yer money and yer takes yer chances …

If nowt else I have a fair amount of fun in thinking up and executing these substitutions and alterations, minor though they be.

Any road: back to the actual build, and a point where I have choosen to go with the instructions, namely for making up the cleats and fairleads around the base of the mast.

To mark out the quarter lines around the circumference of the mast, I resorted to the simple trick of measuring the diameter (12.4 mm), calculating the circumference (2Πr ≈ 38.96) and drawing the quarter lines on a short piece of masking tape at ±9.75 mm apart. With a base line established on the mast, just putting the tape around it, aligned to said base line, gave me a not exact but sufficiently precise indication of the other three quarter lines.

With these lines as a guide, the requisite 1.5 mm holes were drilled, and the first set of cleats on the front of the mast made up and glued in place.

The same went for the fairleads, while the blanks for port and starboard side cleats on facing sides of the mast were cut to length, pushed all the way through the mast and epoxied in place, as yet unbent to shape.

While waiting for the 24-hour epoxy to go off, I set up the crosstrees white metal parts for a first round of painting …

… giving them one coat of primer and two coats of gloss white paint. Those internal holes that are to be glued against the mast were left unpainted, whereas in the case of the holes through which the topmast shall move or that, in the case of the top slip bracket, shall move up and down around the mast, I gave their insides a coat of primer as well, as the bare white metal otherwise tends to discolour the spars.

With the glue gone off, the port and starboard cleats were bent to shape …

… and the mast and topmast assembly fitted together in a supine position …

… so that the trestle trees could be epoxied in place, using the force of gravity (with some extra help from a small bag of lead shot suspended from the fairlead) to ensure correct alignment while the glue went off …

… after which the whole mast and topmast ensemble was stepped, checked for fore-and-aft and athwartships alignment, and found good enough to do.

I then slid on the shroud top slip bracket (and important thing to remember at this stage, as once the top plate is fixed in place it'd be oo late), put a few turns of masking tape around the mast to guard against glue spilling or dripping, and epoxied the mast top brass collar and the top plate in place. The careful observer will also note that the trestle trees haw now been further secured by a bolt through their sides and the centre of the mast …

Once the top plate glue has set, I will likewise drill and pin that to the mast, to which will also be come the small but additional strengthening afforded by the rigging block eye screws going through the after edges of both white metal parts and into the wood of the mast. This will wait, though, until the mast has been stained and varnished, and the cross trees painted white; that way, I won't have to bother with masking them off.

To be continued …

Mattias

Edited By

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Also, thank you very much indeed, Bob, for your kind seasonal wishes, and all the very best of the same back to you and yours!

Mattias

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

The bits and bobs jobs on the mast assembly continues: here, for instance, the joint with the mast on the underside of the trestle trees has been given some Milliput filler …

… while the topmast has received the four brass rod loops needed to secure rigging blocks and the topmst shrouds.

The bowsprit also needed one such brass rod loop, so the upper centre ine was marked out in situ with some 1 mm wide masking tape …

… and a loop epoxied in place.

I have also prepared the sets of rigging blocks, including chain pendants, to go on the back of the cross trees, once these have received their final coats of paint.

Also, the cross trees top plate has been further secured by drilling and pinning it to the mast …

… and once the epoxy had gone off, the excess was trimmed back, filed down …

… and covered with some standard filler; before re-painting, the latter will of course be sanded smooth.

In the meanwhile, and in preparation for painting parts of the complete mast assembly white, the spars produced so far have been given a coat of Admiralty Paints oak stain, watered down one part stain to two parts water. I am fully aware that spars rarely if ever, and most probably never, were made from oak, so to that extent this needs to be considered artistic license on my part. In fact, I chose this stain because I think its colour willl look good with parts of the mast picked out in white and that it will just enough darker and more subdued in tone to contrast nicely with the deck, but not so dark as the superstructures, which will be stained a dark mahogany, are intended to be.

To be continued …

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 22/12/2016 07:02:57

[Author]

Posts