Todays Boating

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

When you say ‘builds’ do you mean you are throwing the model itself away?  Surely there is a suitable home among club members or even just give them to the local charity shop?

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

No. Just the drawings Richard…not the actual boats!

Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Ferry is about 1/218 scale (approx), according to the model length and I have a bag of 1/200 people. They are very small and pre-painted. Not very well, but good enough as they are about 8mm tall. I need a good few benches on the top deck and think that plastrut T section styrene in a 4.2mm size may be the very thing?

I cut a funnel out of pine yesterday on the bandsaw and setting the guide and table at an angle and I have a wonderfully even pyramid like funnel now, no struggle…let the bandsaw do the work.

Ashley

 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

There is a raised centre section on the top of the ferry superstructure and its quite long and nit very deep…about 15mm, so….

I thought I would use a foam core and plate it with 1.5mm ply, as being much easier that trying to make a long thin box using separate bulkheads inside. However, my stock of Styrofoam has been deleted and I only had 10mm sheets left, so I have used some free and readily available foam in the form of yellow building insulation, as found in every other skip when some extension work is being carried out.

It is to be honest of almost no use structurally as its very soft and thinner sections snap just by looking at them, however for this purpose, perfect. It cuts like butter on the bandsaw and the ply gives it the necessary strength and hardness of edge. The whole thing is going to be glued down once painted in any case.

Mulling over making the benches now. Plastrut T comes in 4.8mm size (not 4.2mm) and appears to be about right. I experimented with lengths of 4mm square wood and these looked OK at a standoff distance with 8mm people propped up by them, so the extra shape of the upside down T should do the trick.

Ashley

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Hi All,

I hope Ashley will let me post on his longest running thread 🙂

Well I think spring may be actually may be arriving , so I thought I better check out the boats i winter storage (the loft) and see which one’s need work to sail again this year , I have choice ! there are another 20 around the house !!

Happy Easter to all lets see if we can get this forum moving again in 2024 🙂

Kind Regards  Ray

[Stephen GarradParticipant @stephengarrad28964]

And then of course there’s the aircraft wings we can see in the picture & also what looks like N Gauge Metcalfe Models houses as well so model trains to be done. Lots to keep you busy.

Stephen

 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Ray. You loft looks like my shed ! All those kits…so little time…Nice bit of Wilton there to make it look homely</p>
Nb…the  thread was started so that others could post their boating Ctivities…all welcome!

Ashley

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Hi Stephen,

🙂 A life time model making so far, If it floats, fly’s or runs on rails 5″gauge to N I will have a go ! I find variety is the spice of life especially now retired I’m like a kid in a sweet shop 🙂

Regards Ray

[Tim RoweParticipant @timrowe83142]

Is that a Mirror dinghy lurking in the background Ray? Could we see some more pictures and is there a plan?

Wonderful use of a loft – beats insulation any day!!

A true modeller

Tim

[Stephen GarradParticipant @stephengarrad28964]

Is the blue & green one in the background Lego? grandson had one.

You’re right, there’s nothing like variety to keep the marbles rolling instead of going missing.

Stephen

[James Hill 5Participant @jameshill5]

You’re maintaining your standard Ray,

Lots of everything!!

Jim.

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Spent ages writing a word document to get the right style of lettering for the hss and ferry. Several common fonts suit the various words and wotnot.

The word document had the required lettering on it. In colour (there’s only blue and white to consider,), number of, Height,  Font style (caps. Italics etc) and colour. I took a picture of it and messaged three graphics suppliers on ebay wot do vinyl lettering and have one satisfactory reply. Not sure how I am going to order…waiting advice

Assuming it’s nice on Sunday. Will take HSS and ferry along to test them out, if OK. I can get along with painting them. Might take the flying bus for photos as well.

Ashley

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

Why go for vinyl stick on lettering?  Why don’t you get them printed off as proper decals?  I find with vinyl lettering you always get to see the edge of the backing because it is relatively thick.  With proper decals though you can give it a coat of matt, satin or gloss varnish afterwards and the backing disappears.  Plus you can use decal fixing solutions to ensure a perfect settle.

I had these Decals made from a document I created myself;

 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

I must say I have not really thought about proper decals Richard. Most of my boats have used discrete lettering from sheets, and it’s only fairly recently that I have needed a particular style and had words made up by a graphics company.

For these boats I am happy with Vinyl. I know they are a bit thicker than waterside, but not by much and as strong logos that’s ok on the sides of the boats.

Oddly. On the Sutcliffe Valiant I made, the Valiant name was a transfer on the originals, so to get that look I used discrete lettering and then painted over the name with a polyurethane varnish which hopefully will age a bit and give the transfer look, besides showing around the edges. In the Valiant case, the hull is very smooth and shiny so a transfer would have showed I think, unless the hull was oversprayed with gloss??

Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Fabulous boating. Flat not much wind. Lovely sunshine. The Mr Bishop came down so we could thrash his fishing boat around the pond…

Ok. Flying bus…spectacular. looks fab. Very fast.

Ferry…went as you would expect a ” normal sort of boat to go.

HSS. Wouldn’t turn, despite the differential operation of the props. I think its too long and being at cat. Just wants to go straight. The cure we think is some small rudders in the “jet outlet” boxes to direct some thrust. However. It went really well. Was fast on very small throttle openings and more importantly didn’t cavitate. Ultimately, needs to be rearward Weight biased, and perhaps a few more ounces needs adding, but putting rudders and servos at the stern, and buying some reversing brushless esc may sort that. Showed a small tendency to go nose’down.

Ashley

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

It was very interesting to see Ashley’s so far unpublished projects, his ingenuity never ceases to amaze me. I had a chance to experiment with my paddler which suggested that it is over controlled on the current 100% mixer mode. I will change it to the 50% mode and see how effective that is.

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Thank you Colin, so kind.

I have been giving the HSS issue some thought, and a couple of suggestions have flooded in.

The first possible fix is simply reversing the hand of the props so they turn inwards or outwards opposite to what they do now. It does seem that it should make no difference, but my experiences with the Stalwart has told me otherwise. When I tried it out first off, the thing steered violently one way, but was OK when I changed the props over.

I have much more power than is needed, so some other fixed (non moving) changes or additions might be possible.

Ashley

 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Question for Richard…how did you get your decals done? Ashley

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

In the case of the Corvette, first I cut a paper template of the shape of the bow.  I then marked it with the water line and scale 1 foot increments, above and below.  I used this template to create a word Document with the line spacing the same as the depth increments and the indentation of the numerals matching the shape of the template.  I went through a few pieces of paper, test printing them and matching them up to the template.  When I had the bow numerals as I wanted them the aft numbers, being vertical. were easy to create by simply using the Tab on each line.

Once I had a word document with everything arranged to give me a couple of decals of each type I converted it to a .pdf, which is the format the decal printing service requires.  I created the original in Word as it is so much more flexible to work with and, as you resize things it automatically adjusts things to give sharp edges.  If you use a photo editing program and you resize you can end up with poorly defined edges.  Also rearranging things to fill the space of say half a piece of A4 enables the most cost effective print.  I think I ended up with three complete sets on a half piece.

Once you have it as a .pdf simply send it off to Precision Labels, tell them the colour you want and the opacity and a few days later you receive a decal sheet.  I gave the area a couple of coats of clear gloss first to enable the best settling.  The decals are particularly thin so tricky to manipulate when they are a good size but plenty of water, lay out the work area and think it through, apply plenty of water to the hull and you should get them in place easily enough.  Softening and setting solutions allow them to settle perfectly and when they are given a final clear coating the backing is invisible.

I have created names for friends models as well as it is so easy to use fonts and sizing in Word to get a perfect name created.  This was making the original paper template to ensure the fit.

 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Thanks for that Richard. I need windows and things as well so I might give that a go. The transfers will be placed on a very smooth gloss surface so there should ne no.need for special surface prep. Ashley

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

Ashley, have a chat with the chap at Precision Labels, he is very particular about what will print well and what won’t and how best to create them.  If you send him a file and he doesn’t think it will print well enough he will tell you and not print it.

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Ashley,

A vertical wedge in the outlets would help direct the thrust outwards.Whether it would be enough to sufficiently overcome the ‘tramline’ effect of the twin hulls remains to be seen. Also if the boat is initially at rest there will be no immediate tramline effect so you might get more steering response at slow speed.

Richard,

Thanks for the useful information on the decals. I also find Word has most of the features you need to design quite a lot of things. I was lucky with Bilsdale as the ship had the name painted on wooden name boards attached to the hull so I made up a board of stained hardwood and then composed the name in Word using yellow text on a brown background which was tweaked to match the colour of the board. I then just stuck the name to the board using clear varnish and then the board to the hull.

Colin

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

Always more than one way to skin a cat Colin.  Yet another that has worked well for me for a more traditional wooden name board is this one.  A chap on Ebay makes street signs, designed for the doll’s house business.  They are laser cut out of very thin ply so you simply supply the street name you want and he cuts it for you.  The nice thing is that he can vary the height of the name boards, if I remember correctly, up to around 16mm so they are pretty flexible.  Consequently you can ask him to make up a board with any name you want on it and in a good range of sizes.  I asked him to make the name boards for my Hereward, which looked better than anything else I could have come up with.  Painting is a very delicate process requiring a steady hand and a good eye but the overall result was worth it.  I did try an overall coat of paint and then rubbing the top off with abrasive but it wasn’t neat enough.

The Ebay link:  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305462643620

The finished product:

 

 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Very nice Richard

I remember admiring it st the time.

I am going to try some vertical wedges in the HSS ducts first, these will be on the outside faces so that when only one jet is going (to turn), the water will be directed more inwards. Hopefully this will be enough to do the job. I could  if it shows promise but is not enough, fit a fixed central blade in place, and cut away a little bit of the inner face of the ducts so that the water can flow sideways somewhat and not bunch up in the duct.

It might also give me a better whoosh effect out the back as the two directd streams collide and provide a bit more of a visual wake. I have more than enough power so the loss of efficiency is inconsequential.

Ashley

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

Rooster tails!

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