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[Neil]

finally today after it was kicking around in an EVRI parcel bay because they couldnt be bothered todeliver it to the right adress although saying they had tried.........about as much rubish as their service , it was finally sent to me on monday and delivered today repacked by the sender  as the original packaging had been damaged by EVRI, and so had the model been damaged!......although it can be repaired.

On taking the new packaging off i just had to gaze in amazement at the actual build of the model apparently more than 60 - 70 years ago.

As with real lifeboats of the classic wooden period this boat had beem made from double diagonal planking in the same way that my friend Mike Pendlebury builds all of his lifeboats in the 200 year old traditional method for strength.

Even the propellor freeing ports have been built in to the model.

Amzingly the boat was also built with [unfinished] rooms for engine room and crew cabin with furniture added, AND the two propulsion motors have been encased in plastic outer covers as made to the original 6 cylinder petrol engines before changing to diesel later on.
Finally the boat was so heavy I had pull most of the interior out AS i will never use it with all the interior in and found that the air tight flotation boxes spaced all around the hull to keep the boat afloat should her watertight integrity compromised in a resue were actually fiolled with lead for ballast to bring ther down to watedline.........these i will be able to use as ballast and will eventually number them and place around the hull.
The boat does need some repaiting and the two cabins and  engine room casing will need new builds which hopefully my friend Dave Metcalf still has the moulds for.

But eventually, she will with some very happy work will look like my original boat.

But for now pics of her in present state.

[Footski]

Wow, got your work cut out there Neil...

[derekwarner]

Neil.....


Both old [original] electric motors sat side by side & output shafts appear parallel to each other
The new 6 cylinder diesel covered electric motors each has a geared speed reducer on the output


One motor appears to have the geared ouftput shaft on axis with the motor, however the second motor appears have the geared output shaft off-axis to the motor


Is this just a parallax error with the image?   or will this second motor be required to be mounted off-axis to the prop shaft?

Derek

[Neil]

HI  Derek, to be honest with you apart from their amazing attention to detail and wondering who supplied these motor covers and built them up in the 1940's/1950's which some people are saying the model dates back too, I havent paid any attention to them, as once the model is restored I will be putting two big Buhler MOTORS IN TO THE BOAT.

No one would have ever seen those or any of the internal adornmernt that the original builder had put in to the interior of the model and so my first job in order to restore the model and get it watertight and ready for sailing was to "carefully" remove all the interior fitments to get at the inside of the hull itself to make watertight, before I start on the exterior of the hull.

SO!!, if anyone wants two very unusual motors in mounts............make me an offer, as I won't be using them.
They will need stripping down and cleaning and quite possibly new electric motors to go inside the dummy casings, as they are just a tad stiff at the mo.

[Neil]

Wow, got your work cut out there Neil...

Certainly have mate................but I love a challenge like this and hopefully the old down and out will start to look like a Queen within 6 months.


And her name...........she will become the most famous old lifeboat in history, the RNLB Mary Stanford,  of Ballycotton, Co. Cork, EIRE.

[Neil]

And so, the restoration of a working model begins now that i have finished the smaller Liverpool class lifeboat but for naming her.

I have decided that as the model was built of double diagonal plank on frame, the timbers might be  getting a little tired and if no calico sheeting had been put in between each layer of planking there night be a chance that the hull might leak in one or more places, and so i would have to do something tp water proof it from both inside and outside of the hull.

And so I contacted my friend Mike Pendlebury to ask for advice as I havent built or sailed a plank on frame wooden model since a Billing boat in 1973, and even then didn'y go to such extreams to do anything about such matters as it only went in the water once.

Mike suggested polyester resin painted in to the inside of the hull, and on the outside a layer of fine finishing tissue, painted on with fine easy sanding epoxy resin, .......   but and this is a big but, the interior cabins and engine room fittings all had to come out.

The only area that I was resitent about removing was the foreward well deck.  However this covered all of the bow section and there were cracks in the outer hull that could cause a problem.

So reluctantly I began to remove it.......it came out easily, but what it left, both amazed and baffled me. Out of the bow section came no less than 22 flotation seeled plastic translucent hard plastic boxes that would not bend or cut with a knife but shattered if I tried to bend it.

Each was glued togetherwith what looked like an animal or fish glue that has been used for many years before our plethora of modern glues used these days  [but certainly not hips or plasticard type].


However the bigest surprise was that 7 of these boxes were filled with lead shot for ballast, weighing over 2 kilograms!


Once the bow section was cleared, I cleared out the crew and survivers room and the engine room and all of its fittings.  The two propulsion motors disguised  as 6 cylinder motors in brass frames had been removed earlier.


However on removing the rest of the interior I unearthed another 17 flotation boxes, 7 of them full of lead shot weighing nearly 1.3 kilo's.   And whilst taking the photos of the interior I found 4 more large "flotation" boxes in the extreme stern of the boat that are quite large and deep and estimate them to weigh another kilo, so in total 43 flotation boxes, of which 18 were filled with
approximately 4.5 kilos of lead shot ballast.


So, now I have working space I just have to remove all of the dust and rubbish out of the hull, probably with a hoover and then I can begin to add the rersin on the interior first.

[Neil]

The lightweight woven matt is on its way to able me to waterproof the outer hull, along with the  epoxy  finishing resin to adhere it to the hull, and i have enough polyester resin and catylist to waterproof the interior of the hull............a double wammy against water getting in, I would say.

Thanks go to mike Pendlebury [Gribeauvil] on here for that sugestion and information.

[Neil]

The more I delve in to this model and how the original builder put it together, I realise I have grown too old to find the experience to think of the ways that some of the builders experience and thought process thought of different ways to use materials.
grab line eyelets made from small split pins,  working water spill outlets made from thin tin cans and a surprise find when a damaged peice of paint work broke off to leave a layer of calico on the outer layer of planking befire some paint that has plasticized over the 70 or more years in existancescratch modeling at its very best.

[Stavros!]

Going to be an awsome boat when finished




Stavors

[Neil]

a great deal of work ahead..........but the finishing of it will be sweet. 

[Neil]

Work has started on the hull of the Barnett and the task of sanding down the hull of the boat to get all of the lumps and hollows out of her has started......going well up to now using 40 grit sanding paper.
The hull is looking better already, but I have a problem in that there is no visible mechanism for removing the propellors from the shafts as no sign of grub screws or all Allan screws to get keys to release on one shaft and just a very stuck and old screw on the other shaft.
Hopefully when I turn the hull back on to its keel there might be a release from the inner end, because at the age of this old girl, as God made little apples, if I damage the shafts I'll find later that they will be an imperial or BA size and not metric...............so I just might work around them when I skim the outside of the hull with resin and finishing cloth.

[Neil]

BACK to the 51'Barnett class Lifeboat'

I have given up on the electronics on the Liverpool class lifeboat for the time being as there are only so many times you can be disappointed, and so have turned back to something I can do, and that is building and restoring model lifeboats. And my biggest challenge at the moment and being able to work in my workshop until winter comes blowing its nasty cold weather is to make a start on the Big very old Barnett that i bought on eBay some months ago.

I had started to strip and sand the hull on one side as shown in earlier shots, but the first job really is to change the boat from an inboard mounted rudder to a stern mounted rudder, as the boat I weant to build is my favourite lifeboat of them all, including my Ann Letitia Russell kit.

The reason is, that as a boy of 8 and myself having just been saved from drowning in the summer holidays that year of 1959 by a lifeboat mechanic at Fleetwood, we were told a story of heroism by the crew of the lifeboat I have built once before and want to build again, and that was the Ballicotton lifeboat , in Co Cork, Eire.

And having met the grand son and allowed the unforgetable chance of a lifetime,I held in soft cotton gloves, the gold medal that the Coxs'n won for the rescue, I owe it to myself to make a damned good job of this model that could be nearly as old as the rescue goes back.

And if you want to read about a rescue of  BRAVERY, VALOUR, PERSEVERANCE and sheer GUTS, then read this about an historic rescue where one lifeboat, and the only lifeboat EVER to be awarded a gold medal for its part in an incredible rescue.


And the boat, which I met some years ago, is now restored and sits on the headland over the seas where she carried out her rescue with an unbeleivably brave crew.

https://rnli.org/.../our.../timeline/1936-daunt-rock-rescue

[Colin Bishop]

Neil, yes, get some help with the Liverpool, Dave, (Stavros) has offered to fix it for you, and concentrate on what you enjoy doing. Very many years ago, R/C was very complicated as you had to build your own radios and mess around with high and low tension circuits and earthing the TX in the ground. Then in the 70s and 80s things got a lot easier with mass market proportional gear (if you could afford it). The commercial gear was reliable and all you had to worry about were frequency clashes needing a change of crystals. Things got even better with the introduction of 2.4Ghz, no more frequency clashes and most of the gear you could buy worked pretty well out of the box. Since then, things seem to have become more complicated again with too many options and complications and many incompatibilities creeping in. with Electronize speed controllers you could just plug them in and away you went but now you often have to calibrate them to the TX or cut a wire to remove the brake option for model cars or change the forward only option for planes etc. OK, there is lots of extra flexibility but sorting out what works with what, cutting wires and struggling with programming TXs for various scenarios is often the very last thing we want when we just need to be able to control a twin motor single rudder model boat.

The basic problem from our point of view is that much of this kit is designed by young whizz kids (usually in China) and used by elderly model boaters like ourselves who struggle with the often incomprehensible instructions which have been lost in translation. That is why I'm happy to pay a bit more for an ACTion unit which comes with clear instructions and wiring diagrams relevant to what I want to use the kit for. Plus it supports the UK model boating manufacturers which we desperately need to continue to supply us. Iain Lewis and Component Shop are flying the flag in this respect with sponsoring the Blackpool Show and taking over MFA motors which many of us use and they deserve all the support we can give them as opposed to buying cut price stuff from China of questionable reliability and quite possibly being made in conditions which would not be tolerated in the UK.

Colin

[Neil]

And so to the build.
 
 I have had to extend the keel at the stern to make it a stern hung rudder instead of an inboard rudder set in to the hard wood of the keel
 
 
 And to show what was done including cutting a recess for the rudder lower pintol of cast white mettel, I shall just post a set of photos rather than words.

[Neil]

You have hit the nail on the head very well, Colin, and to be honest I would rather spend £100 quid on two escs that I and other people can understand such as component shop stuff than a tenner n stukk that can go pop as easy as probably this has done.

I said to Dave the other night that I will go down in a couple of weeks when his girls have gone back to school and if we can get this stuff to work then fair enough......if not I'll wait till Blackpool and get some stuff and help off Ian at component shop
but for now, I shall cast all the frustration behind me and get on with what I'm best at lol.

cheers. 

[Neil]

The cast white metal "foot" to act as the bottom pintol and the pins to secure the extension to the hull have been added with 2 part epoxy adhesive have all been glued in place now and then will be secured and glued in place on the boat tomorrow when the epoxy has cured rock hard.

Once that has been done and set, I will begin to fair it all in with filler ready for sanding to the same contour as that already there on the keel and proppelor tunnels.

[Neil]

The keel extension has been fitted to the Barnett with 20 minute epoxy.
Once cured hard I will, with dolphin glase filler shape and fill to match the hull, probably in a few hours.

[Neil]

The epoxy glue had well and truly set overnight.

And so this afternoon I decided to fill in the gaps and fill the "soft" curve where the keel meets the hull to make it all look correct.

I was introduced to UPOL DOLPHIN GLAZE about 3 years ago by Dave STAVROS Jones, and Stav was right in what he said.........its great stuff. It does set quickly so you have to work quickly and set your stall out first so that you know what you are doing!

I marked out where I was going to fill with masking tape, and chose my weapons of attack!

A mixing board,a mixing stick, wooden spatula and a lollypop stick from a Magnum chocolate lolly............of course, I had to eat the lolly first, lol...eee

And then it was down to mixing small amounts at a time, or it will go off before you have used it all and the rest is wasted.

As the filler was going off I used the rounded lolly stick to form the basic curve from hull to keel using gentle strokes with the stick wetted with water to aid the flow.

After a few build up  layers and letting it all go "off"  I removed the masking tape before it set rock hard, and will leave it tonight to cure before sanding tomorrow,

[Neil]

Next stage on the keel extension.
Firstly, using a delta sander with 40 grade paper I needed to sand off all  of the surplus in the vertical part of the keel on both sides so that the new piece and the old keel blended in nicely.........no better guage than your sensitive fingers to feel for any ridges, lumps or bumps, and all fealt well.
Then it was the job to blent in the rough filler into the ectension of the curved area where the keel meets the hull to finish off the propellor tunnels. This was done by hand rolling a piece of 40 grit paper into a soft tube and sanding the filler to meet and match the wooden planked hull. That was done easily!
The sanding has left a few small dents and hollows in the first layer of filler, but a small job to be done on the keel extension first.
When the model was damaged by EVRI couriers a small piece of keel was totally wiped out, and so where the new keel and the part of the keel left i had to fill with a new piece of 6 x 6mm timber which i cut, shaped and glued in with Locktite Extreme quick grab waterproof outdoor glue, and it does what it says on the tube.
I shall leave that to fully set for an hour before skimming it all with a thin laye of filler where needed. And then a further sanding smooth.

[Neil]

hopefully, the final thin coat of filler has been added, and i'll sand that down in a few minutes with 60 and then 120 grit paper before i can then sand all og the outsife of the hull.
And then it is a case of sucking out all of the old led shot and rubbish from inside of the hull.

i am going to try my hoover with a succer tube on it, but if not might considder taking it down to our local morrisons petron station and use the car vac on it, lol.

[Neil]

Was hopefully going to get the keel extension and the hull rough sanded today but a crisis came along this morning that took me a drive down to Stoke on Trent and 4 hours of time to sort out, so only got the two sides of the prop tunnels and the keel extension and half the hull and half of one side of the belting sanded with 40 grade grit.

And feel worn out by a hectic day in all. Hopefully i can get the remainder of the sanding done tomorrow after a decent sleep and a lie in,.....OH JOY!!!

[Neil]

Started on the second side of the hull this afternoon, but had to halt when the ancient paint started to lift in parts from the old cloth that was laid on top of the planking. Not even sure it is calico tbh.
So had to fill the areas with the filler and then to leave to set.  Whilst filling those areas i also had to fill where the planking at the bow had seperated fron the stempost due to the damage that the idiots at EVRI  did to it whilst being lost for 14 days.
That has all now been done and further sanding can take place tomorrow.

[Neil]

think they'd look funny at me going in to a lady's hair salon asking for some sticky elnet hair spray........so my daughter is going in for some lol.
 
 I need it to stick the outside layer of fine grp cloth down ready for epoxying to the boat........Don't look at me strangely, lol.

[Neil]

All rough sanding to get the majority of the old paint off the hull has now been done and the major filling sanded smopoth, just leaving some small indentations which have been also filled with Dolphin Glaze......

These will be sanded down later this afternoon, and then all rubbed down with 80 and then 120 grit paper, before being set aside whilst i clean the inside of the hull out of the detritus left behind from stripping all the old interior out.

Slow work, but needing to be done!

[Neil]

Correction to an earlier post that all rough sanding was done, .......as I had forgotten the port side keel area of hull which had quite an amount of loose paint, so in sanding it all came away in a few largish areas which were filled with Dolphin Glaze last night.
I should be sanding it tonight with any inspiration I can muster lol.
With any luck this really WILL be the LAST bit of filling and sanding I will need to do on the hull, as I have saved MUCH history by using this method of restoring the hull for using it rather than just sanding and moulding a new hull from it.
I feel that by restoring it rather than just using it as a plug, the memory of who ever originally built it, will live on.
So some sanding to do tonight, and then on to finer grades of grit tomorrow