Todays Boating

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Sea and sand.  You will also need some shoe boxes for the Mulberry harbour.

Len. 🙂

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Not pictured, but we did have a floating harbour!

If there was a bigger attendance I would codge up a harbour from that builder’s insulation foam you see in skips, however with only the four of us…

Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Had a last show’n’paint a Trevors on Tuesday. The big corvette us as ready as it should have been 10 years ago and looks very smart.</p>
I will be taking my coastal defence fort and cloth “sea” for the landing diorama. Sorting out troops and vehicles now..(actually, in Weatherspoons kingston finishing a pint after meeting some band chaps) .

P&O ferry on back burner for a week. Dancing tomorrow afternoon and evening. Might get round to sorting out window sizes to order on Friday.

Ashley

 

 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Tomorrow’s the day (, what a silly statement) fir last d day event. There is a meeting at the camp Griffiss flagpole and memorial plaque organised by the Teddington society. Tried but not sure I managed to post a heads up for our event. Drag a few over. Would be nice.
<p style=”text-align: center;”>Made a hardboard lct to the card plan. Easy, hot glued together, 15 min job. Painted one side lct, the other green/white and labelled it ferry to illustrate it doesn’t have to be a military vehicle. Dispenser organised for card lct plans.</p>
Sea and sand along with .more diorama bits also organised, although you can’t do that much ‘on the fly’ on a bit of grass. It should look more eye catching though.

I will be there extra early 0830 probably to set everything up.

Ashley

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hi Ash.

You were looking for a simple build using basic items.

Some simple catamarans using 2 litre pop bottles might fit the bill.

Paul

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Cheers Paul. I will collate all and any suggestions and put them in a folder to decide layer.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Someone may have messaged me but I can’t decide what one it is on the messages bit or I may have marked is read or something…?? Please re message me. Ta.</p>
Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Snap of the “diorama” from Sunday. Not great, but better than no sea,/sand from week before. Later I ‘landed’ some tanks off the lcm (for extra realism.)</p>
Display about 5 ish feet wide. Looks better cropped but just posting from phone.

Gun emplacement really good. Will put better pics on later

 

Ashley 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Spent a while this morning hacking off 3 inches off the top of the devastation box.

Previously…yesterday…I cut the masts, and made them de mountable by putting a bit of painted plastic tube over the stumps so the masts could just plug in. Painted the plastic mast colour and it looks ok. This has enabled the box to be cut down considerably thus aiding stowage.

Tomorrow I am off to b&q to get 4mm ply and blue emulsion (to paint boxes with), the last of my tins are almost dry.

Considering taking the coastal defence fort and landers to the Egham show, but now worried that the landers may be bunched up too much as the tables are relatively narrow. I could position the beach to be at an angle I suppose so the landers will not appear to be bunched up?

I think later on I will get my super new folding table out and try a few layouts. Would like to take the big LcT, as its packed full of interest but again it may take up too much room on my allotted table space…UNLESS someone drops out!

Ferry looking good. Windows mainly only things left…oh, and the benches and 8mm people.

Ashley

 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Rethunk the D Day display. I have a smaller gun emplacement, a 1/32 upscale of the ho Airfix one, and that is only 21 inches long and will sit nicely on a smaller cliff section. Landers would have to be in echelon to fit, but that’s ok.

Have been cutting up the plastic T section strip to make benches for the ferry. Ok so far. All 1/2 ” long. Painted a buff colour. A spacer stick has been marked up and probably tomorrow I will stick ‘ em on.

Tomorrow’s boating….HSS and something of other.

Ashley

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Spent a while this morning hacking off 3 inches off the top of the devastation box.

Ash

Is this so kind of skilled task?

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Very skilled task. Not the sort of thing the amateur should contemplate. And let’s not talk about applying emulsion afterwards!
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Bit overcast Sunday, couple of showers. Only put the Sans Pareil on the water, but nice enough later on.</p>
For those of you who have the latest mag firstly Colins done a great job with the fishing boat, very nice, and nice to give it a good thrashing at the pond. One of our mottos is “try a 3s. What could possibly go wrong?”.

The Disco boat article will make more sense as the ‘series,’ develops. I know the actual hull build is unspectacular, but that’s the entire point of the concept. The coming months should be an eye opener as regards what you could do with the basic hull…. (in my opinion obv)

Ashley

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

All the on the water photos and the cover photo of my fishing boat were taken by Ashley who has done a great job!

Colin

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Too kind Colin!

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Well the seats on the ferry went on ok, nice and even, using a marked spacer and a square edge.

Gluing 1/200 people on…nightmare. I probably lost as many as I stuck on due to flipping out the tweezers or simply dropping them. They were pre painted, and I use the word loosely as they are awful, but at that size it’s sort of unnoticed as per snap. Not going yo try for a better paint job. If they came on their runner I might, but the effort would hardly be worth it.

That’s it for the rear deck barring attempting to put more people on. Still not had a reply from the graphics company regarding windows.

Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

There’s about 50 bods on there now. Can’t put many more on as the remaining figures are.mostly unusable for one reason or another. Will get more from Ebay.

No answer re my stick on windows from the graphics company. Might investigate the transfer idea. I can spray varnish the entire side once the windows and other fake openings are done. Will bring back memories of putting transfers on Airfix models.

Ashley

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

You have my undying admiration Ashley.  (As always!)  I have never even contemplated using 1/200th scale figures!  Did you paint the eyes?

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Made it up to Bushy Park today to see Ashley and some of his latest ingenious creations – most impressed!

It’s an hour’s drive for me in light traffic but took longer on the way back due to the need to negotiate the Wisley roadworks on the A3 and a succession of MAMILs holding up traffic on most of the Surrey roads as usual. Why do these people always look so miserable?

I took three boats with me, my paddler Bilsdale to check out some revised mixing options in the propulsion, my steam yacht (but electrically driven) Vectis based on the Dean’s Medea kit and my Greek Fishing Boat ,currently on the cover of the July issue.

The changes to the paddler mixing have improved things but while we were there I switched the mixing off and discovered that the boat still responds pretty well to the rudder without it. Although fundamentally stable, Bilsdale did have a tendency to heel over a bit when starting off or changing course but soon recovered. In view of the favourable rudder response I am now considering converting her to single motor drive. This would release top weight in the hull which could be invested in low down ballast to improve stability. Decisions!

Vectis has always been a delightful boat to sail and I have recently given her a battery transplant that needed testing. All went well and performance was as expected. When I originally built the kit there were a lot of discrepancies between it and the historical details of the vessel which is preserved in San Diego USA so I eventually decided to build it as a freelance generic steam yacht of the period introducing quite a bit of scratchbuilding to supplement the basic kit. It does make for a very elegant model and performs very well indeed.

Unfortunately my Greek Fishing Boat developed a minor glitch which I had no time to investigate at the pondside if I was to make it back home before lunch. Mrs B said I managed this by just 4 minutes…

Colin

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

Beautiful on the water.  Does the Vectis look a little low at the back end?

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Does the Vectis look a little low at the back end?

Yes Richard, It was on test after fitting replacement batteries – quite a tricky job. The new ones are much lighter and although I allowed for this by adding extra ballast, I should probably have pushed them further forward which I have now just done. Will give the boat a bath test tomorrow.

The batteries lurk under the foredeck to the left of the photo below. The wood strip supporting the wiring has to come up to access them and then of course you start pulling wires out…..!

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Both Colins paddler and yot looked magnificent on the day.  The large file pictures Colin sent me by mail were really fabulous.

Spent the morning with Trevor at the pond re-photographing the HSS. On sundry I inadvertently pushed the white balance button and all the close up shots were a funny blue colour…

Today all was well. Unfortunately the boat is one of those which dips it’s nose a bit at medium speeds and digs up water, and then lifts the nose at speed. I had a couple of good shots at ‘just the right speed’, and the close up low on the water pics were good this time.

The next two builds will run concurrent with each other and will be gp hull ones. One for gp1 and one for gp2. They will go together as a matched pair but on opposite sides N and S (that’s a clue,)

AFTERWARDS , for the one after that,Trevor has spotted a boat I have never heard of. This has a really unusual feature. And one which we spent discussion time on regarding getting it to work whilst achieving the correct look. I even bid on something on ebay to get the ball rolling (that’s not a clue).

Odd. I was wondering what to build next, and all three have just popped up out of nowhere.

Ashley

 

[James Hill 5Participant @jameshill5]

Lovely pictuers Colin of two very elegant boats. Really nice builds.

Jim.

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Thank you Jim!

Colin

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Finito.  Windows and stuff, an hour or so. Few teeny weeny thongs to do.

Ashley

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

Very smart, the lorries set it off nicely.

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Thanks Richard. I love the lorries! So easy to do, and when looking at the boat either on-stand or slowly going by, the things people look at are the⁹ lorries one end and miniscule passengers the other.

It looks uncannily like the die cast, as was intended, however the die cast has proportionally smaller windows than should be the case not that it matters as the side of the vessel isnt flat for a start!.

Ashley

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