Spider J

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Welcome home, Gareth

I was beginning to wonder about you and the build

Your model is looking very nice and busy now……A coat of red oxide will work wonders!

I often wonder why the builders went to all that trouble to produce difficult to form spherical plates…..When the boat has such a blunt bow?……They could have used a square hull, like a coal barge?

Are you having all the ballast in the hull bottom……..Going off the beefy carrying handle?

How much ballast are you anticipating?

Regards to Elizabeth

Bob

[Martin Field 1Participant @martinfield1]

Litho plate would have been so much better from a longevity point of view. Styrene is styrene. It does NOT have a long life, particularly in thin sections. Whist I use it on patterns, I would never use it on a finished model. What you've done with styrene (very nicely!) you could have done with litho plate, glued on with Evo-Stik (carpet adhesive).

Martin

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

Bob,

About half the ballast will be in the form of lead sheet strips, fitted between the frames under the floor in the hold, i.e. right at the bottom of the hull. The rest will be in the form of four removable lead blocks, hopefully the same ones I made up for Shemarah, located the same way on steel pins fixed to the hull floor. The removable ballast will be installed and removed with the boat in the water, to give a manageable weight for launching and retrieving it. I am still a fan of big comfortable handles for lifting the hull. You can see it in the top picture. I reckon I will need at least 40lb of ballast but I have not done any trials yet, other than to fit Shemarah's 4 blocks (25 lb) for initial motor trials last year.

Martin,

I did consider litho-plate but could not find any readily available sources to try it out. I did try a bit of aluminium sheet from a beer can but it was not that successful and I could not get sheets big enough to match the plate sizes on the hull. I think the beer can material was maybe too hard. Styrene seemed to have a bit more scope for getting some double curvature formed in it. I have done a bit of research and the main enemies of styrene seem to be UV light and extremes of temperature. It should be OK when its finished, painted and kept in its storage box for about 95% of its life. I don't know how the material compares to that used for plastic model aircraft kits but I have a few of those that I built around 30 years ago and they still seem fine. I built an Airfix model of a Hawk, soon after the aircraft's first flight in 1974 and that it still sound. In fact that first aircraft, XX154 is still flying today, nearly 42 years later.

I also considered using Evo-Stik to fix the plates but I went for Araldite slow setting epoxy on the grounds that it gave me plenty of time to slide the plates around and line up the edges in the right places. With contact adhesive you only really get one chance to get it in the right position.

Gareth

Edited By Gareth Jones on 18/05/2016 21:50:52

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Gareth,

It is starting to look very, very nice indeed!

For my part I would have worried less about potential long term degradation of the styrene, for which your reasoning sounds fair enough to me, and more about the results of an impact — I have noticed that styrene tends to be on the brittle side and cracks rather easily, so, not least given the amount dead weight in such a model, a miscalculated manoeuvre and subsequent running into something hard, like the side of a pond, could have less than agreeable results … But hopefully that won't come to pass!

An aquintance of mine in Sweden succesfully used 0,09 mm thick aluminium taken from disposable aluminium baking trays of the kind that yiou can buy at any supermarket. You can see his uild in stage of being civered here: **LINK**. The discussion is, alas, in Swedish, but the photos should give a good clue …

/Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 19/05/2016 07:33:42

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

The last few days have been spent adding the reinforcing bars on the bows and the rubbing strips along the sides of the hull. There seem to be various alternative methods used on sloops and keels and the drawing of Spider T is not clear in this respect. I decided to go for something like the method used on the sloop Amy Howson where the bow reinforcing is effectively a top hat section rivetted on.

The centre part of this was made from 4 mm square styrene tube – yes more styrene, I am sure it will out last me. In order to get the tube to bend around the curve of the bow I made a series of cuts spaced 5 mm apart about half way through the tube using a razor saw. The cuts are on the inside of the bend and will be hidden by the angles to be added next. The styrene tube is fixed on using thick super-glue and just pinned at the stem end to hold it in place and stop it sliding around while the glue goes off.

Bending the angle to the required curve is more tricky as it tends to bend into a v section rather than to the shape you need. I solved this conundrum with a eureka moment and an aluminium sauce pan with a fairly thick wall. The 3.5 mm angle was cut slightly over length and put in the pan with some boiling water from the kettle. While it was warm and reasonably pliant it was attached to the inside of the pan using a couple of small g clamps and some bulldog clips.

The hot water was sloshed around and over it and the whole thing left to cool down. Result – a curved but flat section of angle which can be fitted up against the box section after trimming to length.

The angle was also attached with super glue and held in place with bulldog clips while the glue set.

You can see 2 of the finished reinforcing bars above the one being glued in place. The rubbing strips down the sides of the hull are much simpler, being 6 mm half round bar, flattened slightly and glued in place, again pinning at the stern end to locate it while its being fixed. One of the problems is that the glue initially acts as a lubricant and as you try and bend the strip around a doubly curved surface it tends to slide around if you are not careful.

Once this job is finished there will just be a bit of tidying up and a few rivets to add before the hull is ready for priming.

Gareth

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Gareth,

Again, looking very good indeed! And your saucepan "eureka" solution has been duly tucked away for future reference!

Out of curiosity, is there a particular reason why you used CA glue rather than plastic weld of some kind, given that you (unless I'm mistaken) were attaching styrene to styrene? Don't get me wrong: I'm not questioning your decision, but am just curious to know (and to learn).

/Mattias

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

Mattias

I have never found plastic weld to be very successful, partly I think because the stuff I used was very thin and ran all over the place when used on larger areas. I find cyano acrylate more versatile in that you can get quick thick, relatively slow setting types which are good for gap filling and thinner types which seep between close fitting parts and tend to set much more quickly.

Gareth

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Gareth,

Thank you for taking the time to explain!

I see what you mean, and it is indeed true that plastic weld has its own set of inconveniences. The very thin sort should basically, as far as I understand, only be applied by capillary action, i.e. be allowed to seep in between parts already held in place; for application before joining up the pieces, one needs a thicker variety, but there, too, those I've used have had a rather fast grab time, which of course can also be a bit of a bother.

/Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 30/05/2016 07:18:34

[Martin Field 1Participant @martinfield1]

Any established printer will have piles of litho plate sheets going for scrap value or nothing at all. I have three huge sheets which my son got me from a book printer. It really isn't difficult to obtain.

As to Plastic Weld, it is far and away best for gluing styrene, ABS, Butadene and even Perspex. Used correctly of course. CA can be unhappy with the free styrenes and waxy deposits on the surface of styrene sheet. Airfix kits are a slightly different kind of plastic. Styrene sheet will go brittle and crack in an unfortunately short time. I have some in my pile doing that as we speak. And model railway vehicles bowing and warping.

Always best to use metal if possible.

Martin

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

I will make some enquiries of a local printer to see if they have any litho plate available. Its too late for Spider J now but if I ever build another model with a riveted hull I might give it a go. I will also investigate alternative plastic welding adhesives at the CADMA show tomorrow. The stuff I used was EMA Plastic Weld but I just found it too runny and messy to apply with a brush.

Gareth

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Gareth,

I have in no way conducted any systematic trials of plastic weld glues, so I don't really have much in the way of a comparison-based opinion.

For what its worth, however, I have been quite happy with both Tamiya Liquid Cement (the standard, thicker variety, for application before joining parts together) and Tamiya Extra Thin Liquid Cement (the very thin variety for capillary application between parts already held in place): **LINK**

/Mattias

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

Mattias,

Thanks for the information on the liquid cement I will look out for some and try it some time in the future. Unfortunately I completely forgot about it at the CADMA show this weekend, although I did remember all the other bits and pieces I needed.

Spider J has now progressed a bit further. The hull has been primed and about a week spend filling and tidying up all the messy bits that were revealed.

The coamings have been added along the main hatch sides. The front cross piece is the support for the lutchet which locates the mast in the hull. It will have a vertical support as well, which will take the loads down to the keel.

The bitts that support the windlass have been made and temporarily pinned in place.

I have also added the timbers and hand rails on either side of the hawse plates. Again, these are only pinned on with 1/16 diameter brass wire at present

Finally I have fitted the shroud plates and the supports for the leeboards. The shroud plated were made from brass strip and fit through slots in the deck edge. The short right angled flange locates under the top stringer which runs just below the deck level and will take the majority of the load applied by the shrouds.

The next steps will be to add the front hatch and stove chimney and then build the windlass. The main challenge with the windlass will be the two large ratchet wheels but I have plenty of pictures of the real thing and a cunning plan which will be revealed in the near future.

Gareth

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

One of the most prominent features on the foredeck of a Humber sloop or keel is the windlass. They were all very much of the same pattern, being manually operated by a pair of long levers, a rocker mechanism and two links to a pair of pawls which inched the drum around. There is a central pawl/ratchet which stops the whole thing running away in reverse under the weight of the anchor. Here is a photo of a typical installation on the Humber keel Daybreak.

Here is a picture of the model on Spider J about a week ago and the next section of the blog describes how the parts have been made.

The central block which supports the 'non return' pawl and eventually the rocker mechanism is made from three pieces of ply sandwiched together.

The support for the pawl is made from three pieces of brass angle soldered together and glued on the back of the block. The pawl is made from a short length of styrene strip with a length of brass wire as a pivot.

This block is pinned to the deck with a short length of brass wire and also held by a pair of styrene angles with simulated rivet heads. At the moment the block is not glued on,

The two bitts are also made from ply sheet pinned to the deck and located by styrene angles. A length of 4 mm styrene rod forms the inner core and bearing of the windlass.

A gearwheel recycled from an old printer forms the centre wheel to engage the non return pawl. It has a styrene disc on either side and is mounted on a second styrene tube which slips over the innermost one, between the two bitts.

I thought the next part would be the trickiest but it turned out to be relatively straightforward. I could not find two matched gearwheels of the right size and tooth pitch to make the purchase rims so the only option seemed to be to make my own. Since I have no means of cutting gear teeth the whole thing had to be fabricated. Here is the collection of piece parts. There is a centre ply disc, 4 mm thick, two styrene rings cut from 1 mm sheet and about 50 teeth. The teeth are 5 mm lengths of triangular section styrene. The best fit I found was 1.5 mm size Plastruct section.

The disc was mounted in a vice and the teeth glued on side by side. I thought this would be a real pain but once I got into it it was not difficult. You just need to make sure each tooth is snug against the next and square to the rim of the disc.

Every so often you have to leave the glue to harden and then sand off the surplus ends of the teeth flush with the side of the disc.

Here is a finished disc complete with the purchase block which was a real pain to make. Its made up a 9 separate bits of styrene cut and shaped. The first one I made was glued to the gear wheel but that meant the gear could not rotate with the windlass. I wanted the assembly to be able to demonstrate how it worked so I made up a second purchase block that could just be 'sprung' over the rings on the side of the disc and is held in place by the two short lengths of square strip attached to the block.. The purchase block can now slide around the gear. There is no pawl inside it so it will not work exactly as the real thing but it does demonstrate the principle.

The rocker was made from a length of rectangular styrene tube with strips on each side to allow the shape to be built up to the characteristic hump in the middle. Its pivot bearing is styrene tube glued in a right angles. The supporting bracket is a short piece of aluminium u section, again with styrene tube bearings and a brass pin for the pivot.

Gareth

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

Here is a view of the current state of play. I have made one of the link rods up from a short length of soft brass rod. The top has a clevis made from brass strip which will be soldered to the rod when I establish the right length. The bottom is flattened and cross drilled to take a 14 BA bolt which will attach it to the purchase block. There are two lugs on each side of the rocker arm. I guess that was to allow the leverage of the mechanism to be altered, depending on how big the loading was. Usually the link rods seem to be connected to the outermost lug on each side the rocker arm.

Here is another view showing the assembly from the front right hand side.

The next jobs are to make the other purchase block and connecting link and then bolt down the U shaped bracket on to the top of the support. There are a few other details parts to add to the rocker and the centre section of the windlass will be complete and ready to paint. After that it will be the octagonal sections of the windlass that the chains wrap around.

Gareth

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Very nice, Gareth

The winch looks very nice and the method of producing the gears is brilliant

Can we see a picture of Spyder and your other masterpiece together please?

Bob

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

Which other masterpiece do you mean Bob?

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

This is truly impressive, Gareth, and I very much look forward to further installments in this tale of winch construction!

Your very clever way of making up the gearwheels is duly stored away for future reference, too …

/Mattias

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Sorry, Gareth………Shermaragh of course………I couldn`t remember the name at the time

Bob

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

Bob,

I will try and sort out a picture in the next couple of days, if it stops raining and the sun comes out. Its chucking it down again now.

Gareth

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

On the water would be nice, too?

Bob

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

Bob,

Putting the hull in the water might take a while. I don't want to get the primer all dirty and have to spend ages cleaning it before I spray the top coat of satin black. I don't mind the top coat getting dirty as it all adds to the character of the boat and you don't/didn't see many shiny clean sloops and keels. I might get it sprayed next week if the weather improves.

Gareth

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

I have made a bit more progress on the windlass. I made the second purchase block as shown below.

I have also made the two connecting links and after working out the right length soldered the fork ends on the top.

I have also just about finished the rocker arm, it just needs a bit more sanding in some places.

I have drilled the holes for the two studs that attach the rocker support and here is a loosely assembled set of parts that make up the centre of the windlass.

Just for comparison here is a close up of the centre part of the mechanism on the sloop Amy Howson. For some reason lost in local history the whole assembly is usually referred to as a monkey box.

Gareth

[CookieOldParticipant @cookieold]

Great Work Gareth

Best regards Dave

[Gareth JonesParticipant @garethjones79649]

The next bits of the windlass to be constructed were the octagonal wooden warping drums. These were made from 8 pieces of 8 mm x 2 mm lime strip with the edges sanded to an angle of 22.5 degrees (near enough) on my disc sander. I calculated that I would need two discs about 16 mm diameter to form the core around which the planks could be glued. Here are the 4 discs, 2 for each side after sanding in the pillar drill.

The planks were trial fitted several times until the discs were the right diameter.

They were then glued on and the whole assembly sanded down to the right length once the glue had dried.

The end sections were one of the trickier bits as I had no tubing to make up the shape of the end warping drums. I decided to fabricate these with a core of 10 mm OD aluminium tube and a 16 mm styrene disc glued on each end. These were clamped together on a mandrel and the space between the discs built up using P38 filler. This was then sanded down in the trusty pillar drill using sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel to get the right shape.

Once I was satisfied with the shape and length I very carefully cut a rebate in each end for a metal band to wrap round, as on the end of the real thing which I guess was made in wood. Once again the pillar drill was used with a block of wood on which to rest a very sharp chisel to skim off the end of the drum.

A piece of brass strip was bent to a circular shape so it just fitted on the end. This was soldered to form a ring and super-glued on the end of the drum. The four cross holes were made using a square drill to get the right shape. A small pilot hole was drilled all the way though and these were enlarged by drilling into each pilot hole from the outside to avoid the filler from spalling away from the outside edge. Here is the final assembly with assorted nuts and bolts added. One of the square holes through the left outer warping drum needs a bit of tidying up, but apart from that its just about finished and ready for painting.

Gareth

Edited By Gareth Jones on 20/06/2016 13:02:14

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Splendid detail……..Well done

Looking forward to seeing the model at Haydock this year

Bob

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