Inside of the hull has now been coated with epoxy timber sealer/preservative, as well as the equipment trays, which have been made to be screwed in, fitted and unscrewed ready to be put aside for after painting. The prop cable drive shaft outer now has a strut which bolts through the hull and through ply reinforcing on the inside.

The RX, UBEC and ESC will probably be Velcro'd in, and the water pump screwed on with its' mounts. Most things have now been pre fitted, so just a few things like rudder arm and link to make, and the deck can be glued on, (needs doing before hull painting so edge can be sanded flush with hull). Everything is fitted so it can be removed easily once the deck is on. Spray rails will be glued on , and shaft tube finally glued in before painting the hull.

Cold and wet at the moment, so could be a while.

JB

Another bit of progress, despite having to deal with the neutral line to my house being ripped off by upgrade work being done on the power lines in our street (could have been electrocuted !, cost me $2070 to have a new line installed,- expecting compensation !!) and the connection to the water main in the street failing a week later, and turning my property into a swamp,-(councils' problem to fix)

The cabin and hull now have 2 coats of water based Zinsser 123 sealer applied with a 100x20mm roller. Too wet cold and windy for spraying, but the roller worked well. I use this paint to seal any wax which might remain after glassing, as it can cause spots to appear in acrylic paint. Dries quite quickly and gets a harder finish than normal undercoats or primers but is still good to sand. The Zinsser BIN oil/shellac based sealer is excellent for this also, but a bit harder to sand.

When things warm up I'll spray it all with industrial primer filler as a base for the topcoat. Deck not glued on yet.

JB

Painted the acrylic undercoat filler on today, as the weather was good with not much wind, which is unusual for our winter (made spray while the sun shone 😀)
JB

Had a plan of how things were to progress, but ended up doing things differently. Made a bit much epoxy with filler powder up for the transom ply trim, so glued the deck on instead to save wasting too much epoxy. Needed all the clamps I had for the inner edge, -taped the outside.

Cut the transom trim (to be varnished) to about 1mm oversize, taped it in place and drilled a 3mm hole through the top corners and transom to locate the trim sheet for gluing. Clamped the hull nose down to a trolley, mixed some more epoxy and filler powder and applied it to both surfaces, then 'nailed' the sheet on with pointed 3mm dowels. Taped the edges and weighted it down. When set the edges will be sanded to the hull.

Painted the hull and cabin with acrylic white before doing these jobs, as we had a decent warm day for a change (being winter here) then sanded the cabin back again as it had some imperfections, carded on some thick primer filler, then sanded that back, and now should be smooth enough. I usually use US made aircraft dope to seal balsa, but the aircraft accessory shop (100%) hasn't had any for a long time.

I usually buy it in US quart cans,- excellent stuff for models. Hull will be wet and dry sanded again when the deck and transom are done.
Haven't fitted the shaft yet, as that can wait till the hull painting is finished.

JB

Varnished the front and rear cabin trims to be glued on after painting is complete, and spray rails fitted last night. Did a 100km return trip yesterday (80 mins) to buy more white acrylic which was on clearance. Paint was $27 for a 1L bulk can (plus $15 gas there and back) =$42, which a lot cheaper than buying 2.5 400ml spray cans at $32 each ($80) ! for the equivalent volume at the local branch 1km down the road. The things we do for models😐

Went for a wander while I was there to look at a new busway, cycleway, pedestrian bridge over the river, beside the 3rd road bridge (built 1959). It has displaced a small marina and haul-out ramp and removed about 10 houses during construction. Took about 3 years (including rearranging about 3km of the main road for a busway) and is the 5th bridge to be built here since 1865, with the 4th larger one about 800m upstream.

JB

Hull and cabin painting finished, despite sunny but cold damp weather (12 deg c), plus having to spray it outside not letting the lacquer gloss off. Required hours of wet and dry sanding and cutting to get the gloss back, - finishing with Brasso.. Had to re varnish the transom as well, due to the lacquer thinner fumes getting under the masking tape and attacking the varnish. Took a bit of sanding to remove 6 coats of varnish!. Paint not 100% as I would have liked finish wise, but you can't wait forever for a good day.

Gunwale rubbing strips are varnished and ready to glue on,- next will be the toe rails, then the basic hull should be finished ready for the deck jewelry. Cabin needs the windows fitting (tint film over .5 acetate sheet) and sanding to fit flush on the deck.(strapping sand paper to deck and lots of rubbing). Lots of other bits to make, (grab rails etc),- luckily I still have the jig I made for sanding the shapes in grab rails, as there are a few rails to go on.

Shaft and rudder will be fitted later, as they just get in the way at this stage, (everything is ready to fit). Cabin front and rear varnished trim pieces will be glued on later. Lots more to do.

JB

Gunwale rubbing strips have now been fitted and grab rails cut out. The grab rail cutouts were made using a jig made from aluminium angle. The cutout was done in the mill, and taken down to about 1mm to suit the 3mm square spruce. The material was beveled and marked out leaving 5mm between each 18mm long cutout, then clamped in the jig.

The rail cutouts were made using a sanding drum which was the same diam as the milled jig cutout ends, - and sanding them down from the back side to just touch the jig . This makes it very quick and easy to make the rails, with all the cutouts being identical. Any size jig can be made to suit the desired depth and length of the cutouts.

I've also cut the side windows from 1mm acetate sheet, applied a vehicle tint film and fitted them. In the process of cutting the front and back windows and varnishing the rails.

JB

More progress in the last few days, -grab rails varnished (leaving attaching till later as they are fragile) inner coamings almost finished, fitted a cabin seat with luxury upholstery 😎, all windows in, and a few mahogany trim pieces added.

I've noticed that many of these old style models have no doors on the cabins, (how does the skipper get in?) so I've added the illusion of a door on the stbd side, (if anyone's wondering, it's a sliding van type door😉) More 'bling' to go on and in yet

JB

Starting to add the 'fruit' now, with the anchor winch, spotlight, inner removable blanking plate, (cabin floor), bow and stern fairleads anchor guide, dash and support bush for the cable drive inner.

Anchor winch drum was made from a turned down large thumb tack. Fairleads and anchor guide were made in polyester resin, cast in moulds I had made previously, using a male hand made master to make an impression in modelling clay. Clay was baked till hard, impressions waxed and filled with resin, then popped out, filed and painted with chrome paint. Not perfect (depends how much you can be bothered filing with a needle file ) but cheap and can be mass produced. Still have a mould to make for some cleats.

Spotlight was made from 2 piece pop on furniture screw cover. One side drilled for a brass tube, clear LED (from stripped down xmas tree lights) inserted with neg lead soldered to the brass tube and the pos lead fed out the back. One hole will be drilled in the cabin for the tube and a small one for the pos lead, then a neg wire is soldered to the brass tube inside the cabin. The clear plastic washer which usually goes under a screw ( which the cover normally pops over,) is used as the lens. They light up quite nicely.

The internally stepped acetal bush was made for the cable drive to support the cable where it comes out of the brass tube.

The removable cabin floor/blanking plate covers the area where the ESC and RX will go,- also the motor, so they can't be seen. It's covered with black 3mm felt. There are 2 pivoting legs so it can be fitted through the deck and mount on the side blocks. They are folded back when removing or installing the floor, then turned out to sit on the blocks. I just used available scrap to stiffen the ply floor,- didn't need to be fancy as it can't be seen, and didn't want to cut good stock as balsa is really expensive here, (I still have boxes of ply and balsa scraps from all my past planes and boats, - you can always find bits to join if you are short) I think most of us are the same. Dowels are levers to move the arms, as they are under the floor and hard to grab hold of with sausage fingers.😀

Dash was made from thin Formica with printed gauges which can be backlit. Still have a wheel to make. More to add yet.

JB

Thought it was time for a few lights, so did the port and stbd nav lights, the cabin roof light and spotlight. Still have the stern, dash and maybe riding light to do. LEDs are stripped down Xmas tree lights as usual, and the voltage is controlled by a voltage regulator in the rear 'cabin'. I start off at min volts and slowly wind it up till they are looking bright enough (around 2.8v for these). Still testing but they look ok apart from needing blinkers on the side lights to make them suit the visibility rules😎

The mast is made from 3mm ply, with 1mm Mahogany veneer on each side. The base is drilled for 1mm brass wire and the cabin drilled to suit,. Not sure if I will glue it permanently or make it removable for transport, as they are usually the first thing to suffer from ramp rash. Waiting for the paint to dry on a radar which attaches to the mast.

Steering wheel and throttle quadrant done as well

Decals to make as also.

Lights are powered by a recycled 1s LiPo from a 2200mah 3s battery with a dud cell. Perfect for running LEDs through these small voltage regs.

JB