yesterday work continued on accommodation

put bridge wings on, cut out sidelight apertures with Stanley knife and file. fitted sidelight boxes and ground down and sanded flush.

built one funnel casing and glued to accommodation.

today built stbd funnel casing but didn't fit until 8mm holes drilled to accept aft rails and ladder hand rails.

drilled 8mm holes in deck to take rail stanchions. cut stanchions from etched brass sheet leaving the sprue on the bottoms of the stanchions. these can be bent over after fitting which helps to hold everything in place until stanchions can be glued underneath out of sight.

bent rails out of 8mm brass wire with longnose pliers using holes in deck as a guide then slid stanchions onto wires. put stanchion base pegs into holes on deck, bent over the ends and when everything lined up nicely glued up with cyo and an accelerator pen which was left over after fitting cornice and pelmet on our new fitted kitchen. cyo goes off in seconds and really speeds up the job.

one side railings to glue up then can start on mainmast. ladder not fitted but used to get angle of handrail correct. ladder made from white metal and needs fettling and painting before being attached.

total hours 71

finished hull, started accommodation

finished bulwark capping trimmed, filed and rubbed down.

basic hull now complete with motors, running gear, wiring and bow thruster installed.

using foredeck coaming as a jig, cut out and trimmed

parts and glued up bulkheads of accommodation.

total hours 55

aft deck bulwarks and capping

spent the day cutting out, trimming and fitting

bulwark stiffeners and capping. 90% finished,

just got stbd side capping to fit then shape

and sand to size.

total hours 49

filling sanding and start of bulwark stiffeners and capping

yesterday and today filled small imperfections
around deck edges with p38 filler.
did same with running gear.




noticed after removing cramps and ticky tape holding down
foredeck that aft deck had sagged in way of store rooms.
tried jacking up from keel but to no avail. with winch fitted don't think it will show. caused by having to pinch hull in to width of foredeck??





today cut out stiffeners and bulwark capping. made a jig to hold stiffeners in position and vertical the glued with a drop of cyo.
fitted stem capping and sanded flush with hull. also cut out
spaces for fairleads. wil finnish bow tomorrow and make a start
on afterdeck bulwarks. hull work will then be completed and ready for priming and topcoats. am using acrylic waterbased satin paint applied with airbrush and spraygun. expect primer to reveal many small blemishes which will need filling and sanding.
having great difficulty with auto focus when taking pics. must be cos it's all white.

glazing, aft access cover and foredeck.

ground down scuttles inside flush with hull

glazed with small squares of clear plastic

glued on with polystyrene cement. while these

were going off----

built frames for deck sheathing on aft inspection

cover. i cut the wood sheathing at the same time

and used each piece as a jig for the next cross frame

ensuring a good fit. numbered each wood piece

and its corresponding position on cover.

fitted the aft catch for cover.

then built up accomodation coaming. when

finished accomodation lifts off allowing access to batteries,

receiver, speed controllers and thruster.

finally glued foredeck to hull.

total hours 39.

stern roller and foredeck beams

today finished for'd bulkhead store and genny room thenfitted stern roller. did some grinding and smoothing in way of foredeck edges ready for fitting deck. assembled 3 foredeck beams and fitted to same.

total hours 33

fitted aft deck, hatch and forward bulkhead

fitted oak rails as rudder servo mounts

and a battery separator come bottom stiffener. will fit cross mounts when model near completion and i can do a float test. will move batteries fore or aft to set trim. not enough room to fit 12v 7A/Hr batteries through aft hatch but should fit through for'd access.

glued on aft deck with polystyrene cement.

fitted access hatch base, forward bulkhead, store and emergency generator room bulkheads loose not glued yet as athwartships b/heads need trimming in way of bulwarks.

total hours 27

fitted motors

after testing motors to find out which connections give which rotation direction i marked the positive terminals red. i want outboard turning screws when both going ahead. soldered wires (17 amp) first. epoxied mahogany block to hull then used plastic bearers to obtain correct alignment then drilled pilot holes and secured motors with small screws.

fitted previously consructed beams in place.

total hours 18.5

blogging 3

fixing slow computer 5!!!!

bow thruster and running gear

yesterday and today permanently epoxied the b/t unit into bow space. soldered the wires on first and made a mounting block out of scrap mahogany. will fit sucuring strap tomorrow.

trimmed thruster tube ends and sanded down.

removed one arm from rudder control levers as will be useing 2 servos for independent rudders. they are cheap enough and i've got 11 channels to play with so why not. makes for much simpler manoevering. you just fold both rudders inboard and forget about them. when running just use one rudder to steer. ifiled a groove in the top of each shaft which i roughed up a bit withe a file and put a drop of cyo on the join as i've heard they come loose.

next fitted the running gear. this was tricky. need 6 hands. got all held temporarily with clamps and ticky tape. found it necessary to extend forward the slots for the "a" frames by about 1/8th inch before it was possible to get rudder rods through skeg holes. when all in correct position found that one nozzle mount ing plate lay evenly on hull but other one had a void under it. fileing it flat would have made things worse so i glued up as it was with araldite 30min then when set used a hypodermic syringe to inject araldite into the void. will require quite a lot of work to grind down joint edges and fill small gaps with p38 filler prior to priming.

fitting rudder stock bushes

made a jig out of scrap mahogany with 4mm holes
at 124mm centers. clamped jig to edge of bench.
positioned hull with rudder holes above jig and weighed hull down with 12v batteries. then slipped stocks down through hull holes into jig thus ensuring stocks in position and vertical. then simply fitted bushes over stocks and rapid araldited to hull. most important to get this right as it locates correct position of running gear.

fitting deck supports

after smoothing inner faces of bulwarks and roughening glueing surface for supports i started fixing the first layer of supports with 30 minute

araldite. every time somebody asks me what i want for xmas i always say i can't have too many clamps. this year someone finally bought me some!!

while the 1st lot was going off i started glueing up some deck beams. i like useing jigs whenever possible.

bow thruster continued

holes ready for thruster installation.

this is a graupner thruster. the tube is 18mm o/s diameter which is smaller than on the plan. the tube is also too short to mount in the plan position and has to go about 1" futher forward.

i left it unglued until i could get some capacitors to suppress the motor. i phoned model slipway this morning to order a set and they kindly said i didn't need them so will fit it permanently after i fit the running gear. i've mounted it with the motor horizontal and above and forward of the tube to protect from water damage in the event of a leak and to allow access to the impeller in case it gets fouled in use. willsolder the wires to the motor tabs befor glueing in position.

fitting bow thruster

marked the center on each side of the bow as per plan then drilled a 5mm hole on both sides.

made up a scribing tool out of 5mm o/s diameter brass pipe. on to this glued a piece of dowel drilled with 2 holes, 1 at 5mm and 1 at 3mm with 9mm centers. screwed a drywall screw in the small hole.

passed the tool through both holes and scribed one side then reversed tool and scribed other side.

highlighted marks with pencil then cut out with a burr in the dremel.

more progress on model

today was spent removing moulding lines and marking out hull for trimming and cutting out freeing ports, fairlead holes, running gear and access doors.

i used random orbir sander fitted 120 line
disc to remove keel line and area around

nozzles. very quick and easy.

then, useing a pair of dividers and a rule, i
marked out for the cutouts for access door

etc by measuring on the plan from suitable

reference points and transferring to the hull
with pencil.

finally, drilled and cut the holes for the
shafts, rudder posts and "A" frames.

total building time 8.5 hours

log of building model of tug "azziz" supplied by model slipway, uk.

the model is my combined 60th birthday & christmas present. received it on saturday morning and have been reading and studying the plans and instructions.

this is the second model i have built, the first one was the graupner tug parat.

after preparing my workshop i got started on making the stand. i cut the paper template off the plan and transferred it to some scrap 6mm ply.

i cut two templates for routing.

after sanding smooth edges i temporarily stuck

them to some prepared , sized and rough cut

mahogany and trimmed them with my router.

after a quick sand i glued up the stand.

will clean off and seat tomorrow.

hours so far = 4