Lightening the load

[Simon]

Based upon the smell and less aggressive nature described then I have used it in the form of Microscale "Micro Weld", pretty much exclusively in the construction of my Hudswell railcar. I bought in a model shop near Montmartre(!) in 2014. My one criticism is that as supplied the bottle is very easy to knock over, which I did.

It behaves exactly as described by Chris and Is a very useful addition to one's modelling tool kit I think.

I think Phil's Hobby Holidays offer is very good value compared to the Microscale offering and based upon my experience of him and his company it will be completely fit for purpose.

I wouldn't bother trying to buy it more cheaply, I mean how much of the stuff are you going to need? Especially if you, ahem, spend all your modelling time making helpful comments on model railway forums....

My excuse is that I am just waiting for Dave the welder for more baseboard construction - there is ice in the trough, brrr.....

Simon

 

[Rob Pulham]

I too was going to suggest Limonene as I use it all the time for laminating parts of vehicles cut with the Silhouette. I have managed to use a full litre in about 3 years. I have about half a Mekpack jar left so will need to buy some more next year.

 

[Peter Insole]

Thank you all so much for the fantastic advice. It is not only of great help to me, but hopefully for many others who might find this thread too?!

On the maquette, I cut the fore and after decks in one piece, and when forming the gentle cambers, relieved any spring back tension by lightly scoring the undersides. I found that no further supports, bar the central divisions were required - but the plastic structure would have to be a very different animal indeed! At the beginning of all this, the only thing that I could think of was to build up the laminated decks, complete with all the framing and gunwales as a separate operation on the bench. Another problem with that approach is that the distinct variation in the lengths and angles of the sides at each frame joint meant that cutting four of each frame to such a precise fit would be practically impossible. I really wanted to do the final job (in the same way as before) by slotting and sliding in frames cut over length, and then trimming the ends back afterwards when set. Pre assembling the decks would mean that the most visible joints at the boundaries could not be neatly covered over by the lapped skins. Any notion of suspending the gunwales in an empty space while trying to mark up for neat and vertically aligned slots became a a bit of a "too many trees" situation!

In such puzzling cases, the simplest solution sometimes becomes somewhat illusive!

It took me quite a while, but hopefully I have got it now ?!



The trick was to "box up" the stem and stern peaks to rigidly set the gunwale halves in correct alignment, and adding crude ("lodging knee"?) plates at the bulkhead corners to securely hold the butted ends!



Some additional reinforcement will be required in both those areas anyway, what with the various ropes, hatches, windlass "bits", bollards and rowlocks to be fitted !!

Any potential wrinkles should be lost amongst all the clutter?!



Now I have also managed to find my very handy little "third hand", I can set the beastie up with a sharp pencil and confidently mark all the curvy assemblies for a multitude of slots.

Then it will be a case of; way-hey, the jolly razor saw and needle files aweigh, eh! ?!

Pete.

 

[Peter Insole]

Nine days later, and not much to show I'm afraid. I am rather inclined to blame that dreaded, and far too frequently appearing malady yet again.

Under the circumstances, building a pair may well reveal a somewhat doubtful logic, but I have committed myself now...

Yet while the pace has been somewhat lethargic, and despite my wretched affliction, some little progress has actually been made!



Twin swim heads setting. sat on the platter!

Once secure, a mass mark-up session, with the assistance of the third hand was carried out:



It turned out to be a very delicate operation. The pencil could not be held in a more secure position because I found that the base casting fouled on some points. Having firmly tightened the arm clamps, I did not want to have to repeatedly re-gig it all - preferring to just take greater care instead.

I failed to record the subsequent and tedious filing sessions, nor the resulting layer of seasonal looking, but utterly fake snow that had alighted all around me...

My wife even pointed out that it was starting to form drifts before I had finished !



Not prettily perfect, but after much trimming - and yet more dusting, the end result is hopefully fit for purpose?!

After cajoling countless frames into position on the four sets, the bulkheads were clamped together in matched pairs to check all the alignments...



A small amount of adjustment by scraping and filing was required here and there to achieve this rather odd coracle appearance, but am quite happy that they are now beautifully true!

The final two acts before the commencement of plating were to shape many of the frames with an inward curve - although cut and assembled dead straight, the prototype swims took a terrible pounding in regular service on the river, and I wanted to replicate the effect - and to fill the awkward gap in the framework at the bottom/chine to run sections:



Little triangular fillets, shaped in place will add some extra strength as well as ensuring that the plates should fold smoothly over the joints?!

I hope to get some more done shortly - especially as I have a peculiar deadline looming. One of my sons (Mister O) has been steadily installing some proper secondary glazing to the windows in our home, but my table - plus all the junk and me are in the way for the last big one of this batch!

That will mean quite a lot of shifting, I shamefully admit !!

Looks like I will be shovelling some white stuff before anyone else in the district then ?!

Pete.

 

[Tom Insole]

Very impressive work and I'm rather intrigued about seeing some additional glazing!

I must admit I do love the way you made it a lighter barge by taking the middle out (as shown in this image)


Can't see it hauling much though!
Tom x

 

[class27]

Beautiful work. Compliments of the season to all here.

 

[Peter Insole]

Thanks Tom and class27! While the big clear-up fills me with dread, I am very much looking forward to draught free sashes!

Which leads me to another gap filling exercise...



It was time for the ultimate test of whether or not all the framing work was worth the effort?!

The trick was to run plenty of solvent around one segment at a time and then while it was still wet, apply pressure by holding the frames inside with a finger and quite firmly rubbing the outside with a thumb to slightly stretch the softened sheet.

I started at the high, top end and reduced the force to almost nothing further down towards the bottom for a specific effect. As can be seen in the next two images, (cropped downloads, shown for illustrative purposes only) the vessels tended to get bumped about rather a lot. Not only were the lighters of notably different proportions with their peaks at varying heights above water, but unladen ones rode significantly higher still. Effectively, the further up the swim, the more frequent the number of contacts - some of which could be quite violent when the gaggles were caught by the regular wash from passing tugs and larger ships.



Admittedly, they were all fitted with rubbing strakes under the fore swims - either in stout timber or D section wrought iron bands to mitigate the worst impacts, there were plenty enough hard pointy bits bobbing about (including bollards and fairleads) that could be guaranteed to get up in between and punch the platework in!



Hopefully, when fully set, all the dents will remain more or less permanently fixed - unlike the paper model that I have noticed tends to slightly change on a daily basis, depending on ambient humidity levels!



I think I am quite happy with the way it is turning out so far..?!

Pete.

 

[Heather Kay]

I think I am quite happy with the way it is turning out so far..?!

And so you should be. Blimmin' marvellous stuff!

 

[michael mott]

That last shot almost looks like a doped aeroplane wing.

Great stuff indeed.

Michael

 

[Osgood]

Those pictures of the river prompted me to wonder who owned all the lighters.
The ensuing web search led me to Hansard (1967) of all places - and an interesting summary of the history of lighterage industry:

THAMES LIGHTERAGE INDUSTRY (Hansard, 18 December 1967)

From which source I learned that in 1967, with the industry in decline due to road competition, there were some 4,650 barges in use - at its peak the river was home to 85,000

 

[Peter Insole]

Thanks guys! and thank you too Heather! I did include the words "hope" and "so far" - mainly bearing in mind that the solvent will still be busy for quite a while longer!

It does seem strange to be pushing the boundaries and actually trying to make a model look realistically bashed about and warped though?!



Something that we would not normally get away with eh...?!!

Pete.

 

[Osgood]

...

It does seem strange to be pushing the boundaries and actually trying to make a model look realistically bashed about and warped though?!

...

Hard to believe this locomotive was photographed just one month after being built!

The New Order at Wath. (Gordon Edgar on Flickr)

 

[Podartist79]

Thanks Tom and class27! While the big clear-up fills me with dread, I am very much looking forward to draught free sashes!

Which leads me to another gap filling exercise...

View attachment 153196 View attachment 153197

It was time for the ultimate test of whether or not all the framing work was worth the effort?!

The trick was to run plenty of solvent around one segment at a time and then while it was still wet, apply pressure by holding the frames inside with a finger and quite firmly rubbing the outside with a thumb to slightly stretch the softened sheet.

I started at the high, top end and reduced the force to almost nothing further down towards the bottom for a specific effect. As can be seen in the next two images, (cropped downloads, shown for illustrative purposes only) the vessels tended to get bumped about rather a lot. Not only were the lighters of notably different proportions with their peaks at varying heights above water, but unladen ones rode significantly higher still. Effectively, the further up the swim, the more frequent the number of contacts - some of which could be quite violent when the gaggles were caught by the regular wash from passing tugs and larger ships.

View attachment 153198 View attachment 153199

Admittedly, they were all fitted with rubbing strakes under the fore swims - either in stout timber or D section wrought iron bands to mitigate the worst impacts, there were plenty enough hard pointy bits bobbing about (including bollards and fairleads) that could be guaranteed to get up in between and punch the platework in!

View attachment 153200

Hopefully, when fully set, all the dents will remain more or less permanently fixed - unlike the paper model that I have noticed tends to slightly change on a daily basis, depending on ambient humidity levels!

View attachment 153201 View attachment 153202

I think I am quite happy with the way it is turning out so far..?!

Pete.

Absolute mastery of model making once again Peter!
A real thrill to watch the progress.
Neil.

 

[AJC]

Hard to believe this locomotive was photographed just one month after being built!

The New Order at Wath. (Gordon Edgar on Flickr)

Typical of the breed though: part of the folklore of the Western builds was that Swindon were better at stressed skin construction than Crewe: observational evidence (per dad’s spotting days) was that Swindon simply used more filler. Not that such a substance ever went near a Thames lighter I suppose!

Adam

 

[Peter Insole]

Thanks Neil. As there is still a fair way to go, I dare not even start trying to imagine how on earth I'm going to paint them!

Oh rats...! Writing that line down has got me thinking about it now...!!

Pete.

 

[GrahameH]

I'm totally captivated by this thread and your excellent modelling of these vessels. The comment by Michael about looking like doped aeroplane wings is so relevant to what you are achieving, you should be absolutely proud of what has been done so far.

Grahame

 

[Peter Insole]

Thank you Grahame, I'm glad you are enjoying it. Hopefully, once the hulls are painted with a tar brush and then weathered to represent all the scrapes, rusty patches and accumulations of waterline gunge (eek!) they might look slightly less airworthy...?!

I was not so concerned as to whether the underside of the swims ended up either overcooked or under done as it would be less obvious at normal viewing angles, so I regarded those parts as ideal for the experiment. The real test would come when starting the skin on the sides.

All the platework on the bows and sterns would have to be cut to fit the curves for each location, and with not a single, right-angle in sight! Mercifully, every plate to be fitted has at least one edge that meets either the gunwales at the top or the runs and chines below, allowing the sheet to be cut loosely over size and then trimmed flush later. Extreme care will be needed wherever the plates butt or overlap however!

I had thought that the first to be cut would be the only easy ones required... but they turned out to be an absolute pain to glue up...



There was almost nowhere to obtain a good purchase for strips of sticky tape to hold the fiddly little "chinstrap" sheets in place while applying solvent... and... the thin, springy, shiny, rather slippery plasticard had be stretched evenly around the two different top and bottom radii at the same time !!



Blimey! I had to have a bit of a lie down after that lot!

Thankfully, after the pause, and just in time, I remembered to add some blanking plates for the backs of the access steps in the bulkheads - at least while the framework was still open and I could get in there with the glue brush.

Heading for closing time...



Even though I am gaining in a little confidence, it doesn't seem to get much easier?

Once again, the higher it gets, the deeper the wobbles!



Both bows will now need the critically cut, upper plates, and I am tempted to plough straight on, but, the sterns are shorter, with slightly steeper runs, so will need yet another set of templates.

Best get back aft and down in the bilges then?!

I'll try not getting caught having a brew up on the cabin stove, instead of getting on with the job though!

Pete.

 

[Pencarrow]

Looking superb Pete, definitely looking good with the plate on rib effect. Just that bit in the middle to build next.

 

[Peter Insole]

Thanks Chris. It does seem to be an odd way of going about the job doesn't it? Building the ends first for a middle bit, rather than the main body that can then have the ends blended in. Such a peculiar approach was perforce of the materials to hand.

It has turned out that the bottoms and hold coamings for this model are a frustrating 9mm longer than the common sizes of plasticard sheet usually available. I really do not want to butt joint sections in a part that requires structural integrity, and where there are no scale means of providing the additional supports. Apart from having to seek out a suitable sheet supplier, I also need to find some appropriately proportioned plastic angle for all the visible frames!

There are plenty of opportunities to purchase quantities of various angle sections online, but I cannot possibly judge what "looks right" by website pictures only - especially as most traders use the same damn stock images anyway! Before ordering a fairly large amount I shall want to "see and feel" some of the stuff first.

A nice afternoon out to visit a local model shop has been provisionally booked and is eagerly anticipated - albeit Omicron permitting of course!!

Pete.

 

[Crimson Rambler]

If asked David White of Slater's Plastikard will supply 'non-standard' sheets in sizes that are whole multiples of the packed sizes.

That's what I order for my patterns.


Crimson Lake