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[captain_reg]

I'd been looking for a Glasgow for quite a while. Eventually I managed to get hold of one earlier this year together with a Cheddar steam plant. In theory ready to go with a bit to finish and some cosmetic work. As you will soon see the work has been much more in depth than was expected 7 months ago  Here she was as she arrived to her new home.

The first issue became immediately apparent, starting with a simple bath test. The super structure had been planked over which quickly revealed that the glue used wasn't up to the task as each and every one began to spring free. I couldn't see a simple fix so decided to immerse the paddle boxes and find everything that was going to spring free and see where that left me.

This is where I ended up, giving a great opportunity to customise the cut outs in the side of the paddleboxes. I decided to keep as much as I could hoping that if it hadn't come off by now, that it would stay put. The loose planks had araldite pasted underneath and the fully loose planks were reinstalled again with araldite. I made sure to take a bit of time to remove a bit of the excess material from the planks to give a bit more expansion room in the future. No idea what glue had been used originally but I scraped off as much as possible, the residue being quite gummy in texture. Tape, clamps & hope did a great job of holding the reaffixed and new planks and the new side panels were fitted with a generous quantity of araldite. All was sanded and undercoated and dunk tested. A few minor places tried to break free but a little more patience and araldite got it able to withstand a good dunking. Actually not quite, a few problem areas remained and as a final last ditch attempt and treated all problems areas with a 50/50 tung oil / white spirit mix which was left to penetrate deep into the wood and 'cure'. Paint was then applied on top which to my luck adhered no problem ontop of the oiled wood. Thankfully this seems to have resolved the issue entirely. Currently 3 weeks into a 2 week refurb


Thankfully finally some good news, the boiler 'passed' my DIY pressure test so I was confident about being able to get all the required testing and certification sorted eventually. I hadn't been able to test the boiler before purchasing so this was much needed relief that I hadn't bought scrap copper I was then brave enough to steam test and thankfully can report that it has steamed at home many times since without issue.
I shoe horned a battery and motor aboard to take it to down to the club for a quick test. I've never had a paddle steamer before so wanted to understand it's handling etc before committing to some decisions later in the refurb. It actually sailed great and I now knew the eventually paddle RPM I wanted to get a decent speed. It was stable and the turning circle was good enough. I'd noticed by now that the main paddle wheel shaft wasn't actually perpendicular across the boat so that was something that was going to have to change. It didn't actually seem to affect it sailing but I just couldn't leave it as was. Also discovered that the paddleboxes had been made wrong somehow causing water to cascade over the deck and into all the unsealed hatches and flood the hull. Thankfully I found this in the bath and decided to brave the lake with the masking tape providing the sealing. Thankfully I got away with a about 10 minutes without issue.


Can't be much more to do now? Can't be much more to uncover? I'm afraid we still have a way to go. The next delight was to discover that the deck had decided to part ways with the hull around the bow on the starboard side. The section around the centre was firmly attached so I didn't see any hope of removing it as one piece. In hindsight I should've cut the deck across either side of the red painted centre section. At this point in time I thought only one point was going to give way but it later turned out to be all around. Thankfully however I was able to repair this quite effectively. I also took the opportunity to straighten out the deck as for some reason, the deck wasn't located into the recess into which it should've been glued. Time to get out the araldite again. I drilled a series of 1.5mm holes around the affected section and after filling a syringe with the araldite (a bit of head thins it quite nicely) injected this through the holes and with the boat keelside topwise gravity flowed it nicely to resecure the deck.



In the end I had to do this all around which in hindsight if I had realised at the time I could've removed large sections of the deck to give better access. Anyway time to straighten up the paddle wheel shaft. So drill out the exisiting brass tube and replace with two brass bushes soldered into a tube. I planned to drill a small hole from the inside bush to allow oil to get into the central 'reservoir'. Then araldite in position, taking the opportunity to straighten up some sections of the deck and reaffix the combing that had also come away.

[captain_reg]

For a moment it felt like things were starting to come together but I now had two choices what to tackle next. The planking around the edges of the deck needed to be redone to match the straightened deck or... I'd realised that the sponsons that support the paddleboxes were glued waaaay more than the 3 degrees that they should be. It's going to be a big change so best tackle that first. I was having difficulty getting reliable results using the suggested template from the graupner drawings so decided to make a jig and call on the help of a laser level to at least get the sponsons set correct relative to the paddle wheel drive shaft. Aluminium spars were inserted through slots I cut under each sponson. There were pushed through and araldited to the structure of the deck and main hatch taking all the load off the thin plastic sides of the hull.



Next was to repair the planks that had been affixed along the sides of the deck to the gunwhales? and the gussets that I had already removed. after a quick look I decided it would be easier to just remove all the exisiting and replace them with new rather than try to fit each to the exisiting quite erratic spacing. Thankfully this was actually quite easy to remove them and sand away the same (still tacky after 25 years) glue that had caused me the issues earlier on the paddleboxes. This was a mix of 4x1.5mm walnut that came with the boat and 7x1mm tanganyka strips I had from another project. Just a very repetitive process to cut each one working from front to back and supergluing in place.



Now time to sort out the paddleboxes. Seems that the wood planking that had caused me the issues earlier on has come back to haunt me again, it appears that the ones that we firmly glued have actually caused the thin plastic the distort. I straightened the paddleboxes with some lime strips and balsa blocks to pull them square(ish). I also fitted the covers for the paddle wheel shaft. I also glued in a bit of a 'flashing' strip to try and tidy up the join and stop the water splashing over onto the deck


Something I have forgot to mention was that the removeable parts of the sponsons to allow for the paddle wheels to be removed we solidly glued in and quite frankly were a bit of a mess. So I'd cut them out to be able to dismantle things to get this far so I needed to make replacements. I made replacements from from Sapele bench slats. The existing sponsons had been built up to offset some error somewhere in construction, I tried to remove this but had no luck so just had to go with it. I milled a slot in the top to allow the feather mechanism to sit at the right height relative to the shaft.
I've come this for so to not repaint the hull would be a bit silly really. This is something I've struggled with recently having fallen out with the new formula of Humbrol which used to be my goto. More recently I've had dissapointing results with the Halfords auto enamel finding it to be not very durable and hard wearing. So I decided to try the Halfords enamel range this time. Bit long winded but I promise we'll get to the steam stuff soon enough  First step was to sand with 400 then 800 wet or dry. Then a coat of adhesion promoter because I have no idea what paint has been used previously. Red primer was sprayed all over first. Then the laser level came out to determine the correct waterline and ensure this was set correctly relative to the paddlewheels. This was then masked and the black upper parts were sprayed. I got this this point and had to decide if I was to continue and try the white stripe. I quite liked the look as is and figured there was a degree of risk attempting to get the white stripe correct.


Very happy with the finish so far and was utterly gutted how the line came out. In hindsight I wished I hadn't bothered at this point but I was this far so might as well try and save it.

Masking, masking, masking and more masking. Many many attempts to neaten and even up the edge. Compared to how neatly the line between the red & black went, I really stuggled to get the same sharp line here. Oh well, best I could do and couldn't bring myself to start again and probably get the same result. The thin line masking tape I tried (not Tamiya) seemed to be naturally wavy and trying to get a nice smoot curve took ages and was far from perfect.

[captain_reg]

Finally time for the steamy parts. I did an initial trial fit of the steam plant as I receieved it. Some issues with blocks that had been glued into the main compartment getting a bit close to the burner. The gas tank was a nice snug fit in the bulkhead but wouldn't be easily removeable. Most of the plant was mounted on a wooden base that had been raised up on 1/2 inch high legs which I didn't really like as I felt it moved the centre of gravity upwards unnecessarily.

This is my first 'real' steam boat, I've dabbled last year with a Wilesco D48 in a steam launch but with no deck and access hatches that was a walk in the park compared to this. I very quickly abandoned the idea to put the items individually into the hull deciding instead to mount everything to a single removable base. So this is what I eventually settled on. The boiler position is pretty fixed by the funnel. The gas tank is removeable via the front hatch. The wooden block under the engine, is a placeholder for a large condensate tank I'm planning. Believe it or not this whole thing feeds quite easily into the hull. Not enough hands to get a photo or video of it so you'll have to take my word for it.

The gas tank arrangement took a bit of trial and error to something I was happy with. I wanted it to be easily removable to allow for filling outside of the boat. There are 4 M1.6 socket head screws in the wooden base that act as locating lugs. The tank drops straight down through the hatch without obstruction and then once it is almost fully lowered, you move it about 1/2 inch backwards to allow it to drop onto the lugs and then the gas pipe screws on easily. The gas valve was from Clevedon steam as it didn't feel right sailing without a way to shut off the gas remotely. The reason for the gas pipe being so long and convoluted was firstly to get it somehwere I could fit the gas valve whilst keeping the servo away from the engine. Primarily though it gives it quite a bit of spring and flex which was initially required to fit the gas tank past it before I figured out it worked better with the tank not aligned with the hatch.