final painting, transfers and fitting out.

yesterday finished painting small stuff and fitted anodes to rudders and kort nozzles.







today, fixed transfers on fire hose boxes, access doors and hull,
(names, port of registry, ford draft marks and bow thruster warning.


fitted out monkey island with standard magnetic compass, horn and mounting frame and three searchlights. then fitted 4x wheelhouse doors, glazed them then fitted glazing to windows. have left the protective film on glase, will remove just before securing wheelhouse to accomodation.




next fitted out fo'c'sle with rope store hatch.cable guides, windlass,
escape hatch, vent, large and small bitts, spare prop and anchor,
big pipe?, builders and spec plates and 2x floodlights

finally fitted crane, control station and hoses, doti boat, store and emergency generator room doors, 4x fire hose boxes, vents and portside ladder.

a good day.

total hours 232.

painting continues.

yesterday and today spent painting all the small parts plus wheeelhouse and monkey island decks. fitted fire monitor system and pipework. then fitted funnel vent grills, company logos, exhaust outlets and weather doors.

total hours 216.

and more painting.

touched up deck green around stanchion bases. sprayed wheelhouse and accommodation with air brush. air brush went tits up so had to strip and rebuild it. the compressor started blowing off and not switching off so overhauled switch, gauge, and safety valve so now good as new. while i was on that added a pressure gauge on the low pressure side of the reducer which i had chopped off my broken car tyre pump when that burned out. knew it would come in handy. all that fixed resumed painting masts, winches, vents and liferaft cradles. also drilled deck for cradle attachment points. finally brush painted bulkheads (two more coats).
need to cut in deck green around bulkheads tomorrow.

dummied everything up to see how she's going to look. deck green doesn't look nearly as bad when deck gear is in place.
still a fair bit to do but end in sight. have to start looking on e-bay for speed controllers, servos, switches and fuse holders. intend having external chargeing point so dont need to keep removing batteries.

total hours 202.

more painting.

started off by painting the decks with revelle aqua paint (water based acrylic), applied after thinning with brushes. not a brilliant finish but unable to use airbrush as the paint always creeps under masking tape, (see waterline pinstripe). next i painted the elephant rails. not too fiddly, same paint type. after that painted the lower rails and stanchions white, top rail black. very fiddly. went over bulwark capping orange with brush as spraygun missed most of it. painted bulkheads white , again with brush. needs another coat. finally painted access hatch and fitted wood sheathing. had to scrape away excess cyo on cross bands before wood fitted neatly. need to touch up deck green in way of stanchions as got an attack of the shakes when painting them and got some white on the deck.
total hours 193.

topsides orange.

the very nice man in B&Q mixed me up a very nice "african adventure 3". not as red as the spec but i wanted a bigger contrast between topsides and hull. not likely to lose it on llyn padarn, eh!! bit of cutting back on pinstripe then its deck green.

total hours 184.

anti-fouling.

cut back the grey all over hull with 800 wet/dry used wet with soapy water, repaired with air-brush and removed paint from pinstripe. masked up and sprayed 3 coats berry wine red satin acrylic. again a few runs so will let harden overnight and cut back with 1200 w/dry tomorrow. then go hunting for a nice orange/red for topsides.

total hours 177.

1st coat of primer.

one coat B&Q grey acrylic primer/undercoat. new spraygun and new paint. a few runs and some contamination causeing small pits but no real problems. all parts were washed in warm soapy water and dusted off with panel wipes and tack rag. found ring locking spray horns was greased. not a good idea. possibly picked up some small specks of grease. will thouroughly clean gun before next use. primer coat highlighted many areas that need a bit of filling and rubbing down but on the whole very happy. will finish outer hull with the big gun also accommodation white, will do the rest with airbrush and brushes.

total hours 173.

waterline.

all construction is finished. prior to painting need to mark out waterline. made sure hull on flat surface, slightly raised as running gear projects below ships bottom, upright and even keel and clear run around worktop. then made up tool to correct height using data from plan at aft perpendicular. superglued pencil to top of tool, waxed bottom of tool and ran it round the hull so marking waterline perfick. went to halfords for some panel wipes and white pinstripe for boot topping but they didn't have suitable stripes in white. will try siop y modur am. intend using white pinstripe to mark out waterline, prime all over the the hull with grey, covering pinstripe as well and after rubbing down, mask off above w/l and spray below w/l with red oxide primer to simulate anti-fouling colour. next, remove masking and mask off bottom side and spray above w/l with final colour. then cut back with 1200 wet/dry paper removing paint from pinstripe which should leave a nice white boot topping. to get the required satin finish and protect fragile acrylic paint and transfers will spray over all with satin polyurethane varnish. must remember to mask off propshaft threads and rudder posts as not fitting rudders till after painting.

the foremast.

remade the support stays and completed foremast. VERY fiddly.

total hours 167.

towing winch, tugger winches and foremast.

started of today building towing/anchor winch. straight forward but needed to paint inner aspects before installing reels as would be difficult later. will fit wire when painted properly and can source 1.7mm wire.

next moved on to tugger winches. again straight forward.

next made a start on the foremast which requiers 34 cuts for rungs, 6mm centres plus assorted 1.6 mm drillings for supports and 1mm for nav light mounts.

so i made up a jig/guide by making 2 cuts 6mm apart in jig so now simply make 1 cut, move it along, secure with spare hacksaw blade and repeat 34 times.

then made up supports very accurately and installed same only to find stays 8mm too short!!
mast has 1.6mm brass peg inserted into base this fits through fo'c'sle deck into underdeck beam so is quite rigid but is fragile so will be dismountable for transporting boat. stays will be push fit in stem capping.

total hours 163.

hawsepipes, spurling pipes and windlass.

no provision on plans for hawsepipes or spurling pipes so made up some dummy pipes out of 5mm brass pipe 25mm long with one end blocked off and the other end belled out. dopped one pair down through hawse rings and the other pair pushed down through 5mm holes drilled under windlass. secured with drop of cyo. will drop chain down holes and secure with cyo when i fit windlass after painting deck.

rest of time spent fettling white metal parts for windlass and assembling same.

total hours 155.

wire guide and deck crane.

made up thewire guide from 8mm dowel and plastic webs. i clamped the two long rails together the ran an 8mm drill between them for the female mitres then rounded off the ends of the crosspiece. drilled 8mm holes in aft access deck to locate legs. tacked legs in place then fitted fillet/webs and glued up everything.
bit of fettleing on the deck crane parts, drilled 1mm holes for ramand used 1mm wire for ram.

total hours 150. well done wales!!!

aft gates and more small stuff

finished the gates then made up vents and valve assemblies. cut out and made up doti boat chocks.

total hours 147

elephant rails and aft gates.

for the elephant rail i fettled and sanded the uprights then useing a rule taped to the bench and a set square i aligned te uprights on 48mm centers and tacked them to the bench with cyo. then i inserted a 1.6mm wire into a 3.3mm plastic tube and bent this into the rail shape., taped it into the the tops of the uprights then wicked in a drop of cyo on each join. while this hardening marked out and drilled 1.6mm holes in each side of the after deck the glued rails assemblys in place useing a set square to ensure each upright was vertical.

last job of the day was to bend up, drill , assemble and solder the 3.2mm and 1mm wires makeing up the aft deck gates.

total hours 139.

small stuf vents, hatch trunking, liferafts and cradles and doti boat.

cut out, trimmed and glued together the liferafts and doti boat.

cut out, trimmed and glued up hatch and vent trunkings.

fashioned and glued up pipe vent.

finally fettled liferaft cradle castings and assembled with

1.6mm and 0.8mm wire.

total hours 132.

ladders, lifebuoy frames and monitors

finished off the monitor system, not glued down until after painting.










then cut out, bent and soldered lifebuoy frames to rails, glued to bulkheads. 8 peices in all. a fair bit of tidying up with file and wire wool ahead.










finally things starting to come together.
total hours 124.

mast nav light houseings and monitor sysems.

made up, fettled and attached nav light

houseings/mounts to mast.

started on fixtures and fittings for fire monitors on monkey island.

fixed sea water pipe mounts into pre-drilled holes in

monkey island deck.

mainmast

this took 11 hours. really tricky. total hours 114.

lower mast and topmast platform.

14 parts, 6 hours and still got to fix steps and handrails!!!

total hours 103.

foredeck rails and mainmast supports.

spent the whole day marking out, drilling 0.8mm holes,
bending up and fixing foredeck rails.

finally cut out, assembled and fitted lower mainmast support
brackets.

total hours 97.

rain deflectors, handrails and window platform.

started first thing this morning sanding down the filler on

windnd deflectors around stanchion cut outs.

then marked out for 0.8mm hloes for bulkhead handrails.

found it better to only drill for one end of a rail, then bend rail to

shape, fit it in the hole, then drill the hole at the other end. wires

are glued on the inside.

cut out the platform from the etched brass sheet, bent it to shape in the vice, drilled the holes using platform as a guide and glued in place.

wheelhouse in place temporarily. will be easier to paint before fitting permanently.

total hours 90.

monkey island rails, wind deflector and ladders

today spent making up rails, fitting and soldering. then cut out
parts for wind deflector and fitting. then used a little P38 filler
around the stanchions where the protrude through the deflector.
lastly soldered handrail to top rails for ladders.

a very fiddly day.

will sand down filler tomorrow.





total hours 84.

the wheelhouse

started off today by soldering the top rails to the stanchions around the wheelhouse. this went better than i had hoped, washed the flux off with wet tissue paper and repolished the area with a bit of wire wool.

next cut out trimmed and sanded down parts for the wheelhouse. glued up in same way as for accommodation, using a block of squared off mahogany clamped to the bench as a support and guide so everything ends up square and even.

when w/house finished i cut out of the instruction book the drilling plan for monkey island rails and fixtures. i marked the positions of the 8mm holes through the paper with a bradawl, removed the paper and drilled all the holes. then cut the stanchions out of the etched brass sheet. next bent up the wires for the rails using the holes as guide. will complete installing rails tomorrow.

total hours 77.