DIpping my toes back into Maritime - a 1/72 Vosper MTB

[JohnWS]

Looks like summer weather will be continuing in Ontario for your visit (no snow boots or parkas required )  Hopefully, you'll be able to see Haida during your visit, as well.

 

Have a safe trip.

 

John 

[Terry1954]

Thanks John. I'd like to see Haida but now realise Hamilton is a fair distance down from where we are staying, so may not get the chance. We are doing some time in the Blue Mountains, then up further to Tobermoray, before finishing down in central Toronto for a few days. 

 

Will report back anyway!

 

Terry

[Courageous]

Excellent work on the bridge detail, looking good.

Enjoy your visit to Canada.

 

Stuart

[longshanks]

Goo progress, enjoy your break

 

Kev

[robgizlu]

Some super detail work there - Have a great holiday

Rob

[seadog]

A good lot of work so far! Looking good.

[Terry1954]

It's been some while since I had some time on the Vosper, so a status update is due.

 

Telford weekend gave me the opportunity to acquire some things to help progress the build to the level of detail I would like. The Coastal Craft stand was buzzing with activity and I was able to pull together most of the things I needed for the build. I was very impressed overall with the product sets available and most certainly, after the Vosper and the Air Sea Rescue launch I plan to build, I will be adding one or two of their fine resin complete models to the collection.

For now, we have these:

 

So, once I have completed some very minor tidying work on the Sabre and Sedbergh, work will re-commence on the Vosper in earnest, most likely in the next day or so.

 

Meanwhile, I was tempted by another Naval subject at Telford, after purchasing this fine book at an absolute bargain price (sorry slightly off topic for a Coastal Forces model thread!)

 

I can thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject, as @Courageous will no doubt testify, as I helped him spend some of his budget at the weekend!

 

The Naval subject I purchased was this beauty, which I promise will form a thread on it's own over the next month or so.....

 

So, on with the Vosper!

 

Terry

[Courageous]

Just one or two bits from Coastal then...

8 minutes ago, Terry1954 said:

I can thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject, as @Courageous will no doubt testify, as I helped him spend some of his budget at the weekend!

Thanks for pointing the book out, much appreciated, saved a few 'bob'. As to helping me to spend some of my budget, no help needed, done that all by myself, think I spent some of next years.

Crack on then Terry. 

 

Stuart

[Terry1954]

Work has finally re-commenced in earnest on the Vosper.

 

I've spent a pleasant few hours over the last couple of days continuing to add scratch built detail to the bridge area. This is the first time I have ever built a maritime subject in this scale, so its all a bit new to me. I'm using photos and drawings from several reference sources. There is potentially a lot of detail that can be seen in this scale, so the build could be a long one! Those familiar with Coastal Forces boats will know what I mean!

 

I managed to get things this far yesterday:

 

And then today I spent quite a bit of time making some very small parts indeed. The "work area" where the parts are kept to prevent them flying away is some upturned masking tape.

 

So now we have work just about complete on the main forward facing operating position on the bridge. Various items such as engine controls (direct and down to engine room), torpedo firing controls and compass.

 

Port facing side bridge:

 

Starboard facing and rear facing vertical surfaces:

 

And some shots of it all held together (currently still with blue tack)

 

A few small bits still to add including the wheel itself, a small raised platform at the helmsman's position and the Captains stool. The next area to concentrate on will be the area behind the bridge itself where the flag locker resides, and then the front face of the bridge. I'm also planning to scratch build the outside upper part of the bridge which does not look convincingly accurate in the kit. Some thought will need to go into that. 

 

I also noticed from a couple of photo references, that the port side scuttles had one incorrectly positioned, so that was filled in and a new one drilled in the correct place.

 

So tonight we have an almost complete bridge area and a deck that has much detail stripped, ready for the aftermarket additions and/or more scratch building.

 

I'm really enjoying the work on this subject as it's quite a change from the usual aircraft models. I should probably finally sort the Sedbergh windshields and get that RFI up!

 

Thanks for looking

 

Terry

[Courageous]

Nice to see another launch on the go. The bridge detail looks amazing.

 

Stuart

[longshanks]

Nice work Matey !!

 

Kev

[robgizlu]

Impressive detailing - just what this kit needs

Keep it coming

Rob

[Spad57]

 Terry,

You're doing grand work to the old girl. Keep up the highest level s of excellence my friend.

Highest Regards,

Gregory Jouette

[JohnWS]

Great scratch building Terry. 

 

[beefy66]

Looking like someone’s just had an inspiration boost great job on the bridge details 👍🏻

 

Beefy 

[Terry1954]

Thanks to Stuart, Kev, Rob, Gregory, John and Beefy for your encouraging comments. I'm enjoying the build immensely. I have to confess @longshanks, your build back in 2014/15 is providing a lot of guidance on how/what to change/improve, along with other builds on BM, together with some excellent reference material by John Lambert and Les Brown. I can see myself getting very drawn into Coastal Forces craft going forward. 

 

My plan is to work outwards from the core bridge structure, to get the whole bridge area rework and detailing complete, before I start in earnest on the main deck. 

 

I do have one question for those who have built these and similar scale MTB's MGB's. Have you used the kit supplied glazing for the scuttles, or some other glazing medium? I  am very tempted by trying the later as in this case the kit ones don't look that great. Also, taking that route, I could close up the deck and hull sooner and glaze right at the end.

 

Thanks

 

Terry

[Courageous]

9 minutes ago, Terry1954 said:

I do have one question for those who have built these and similar scale MTB's MGB's. Have you used the kit supplied glazing for the scuttles, or some other glazing medium? I  am very tempted by trying the later as in this case the kit ones don't look that great. Also, taking that route, I could close up the deck and hull sooner and glaze right at the end.

FWIW, for my RAF ASRL, I used the kit glazing for the wheelhouse and turrets but not for the long cabin windows, I used canopy glue instead. When your boat is all but complete, put a blob of canopy glue into porthole, move around a bit so that it fills the hole and watch it go clear as it dries, worked for me .

 

Stuart

[Terry1954]

Thanks Stuart. I was wondering about that, so will give it a go. 

 

Terry

[robgizlu]

Hi Terry - FWIW I'm with Stuart too.  I use "Micro Kristal Klear"

If nothing else - it's easier as you can glaze after everything is painted and weathered etc

Rob

[Terry1954]

Thanks Rob. I tested it out last night on a scrap of plastic with a reasonable sized hole to represent a scuttle, and all good. As you say it will be much easier to glaze right at the end this way. 

 

Terry

[Terry1954]

A little more progress on a number of areas.

 

Firstly an additional bit of detail in the main bridge area in the form of the small raised platform for the helmsman to stand on, and the Captains stool!

 

 

That should keep those two chaps happy..........

 

Next picture shows some work on what I think are the Halyard cleats, well they are certainly cleats anyway. There are to be four here on the port side, in the area just behind the bridge entrance :

 

 

I made at least six of these from very fine wire, and four of them survived the afternoon. The other two are somewhere on the hobby room floor.................

 

They get to go in the holes like so, first one:

 

Then all four. I had to have several goes at this as they are quite small and fiddly.

 

Then I did some more work to the hull. 

 

Some aluminium tubing for the exhaust ports, blanked off at the rear.

 

I also test fitted one of the Coastal Craft neat little brass scuttles. This led to very slightly needing to "ream out" the existing holes to an even size, and also to ensure no plastic was visible in the actual hole. No pictures of those yet.

 

Next I test fitted the deck, and can confirm the fit is pretty bad! I'd had some challenges back when I started the build, getting the hull sides and bottom together. You can see from the picture milliput is used extensively to help hold and strengthen the joins. The deck is equally badly fitting. No surprise really due to the age of the kit, and the method of bringing the hull together. It leaves scope for errors to creep in when lining everything up, especially if you only happen to have two hands - three or even four would be ideal!

 

I therefore decided it best to add some internal support to prevent the deck sinking below the hull sides, when I come to actually bring it all together and clamp etc. So these are now in place and the deck fits quite well, but the centre sides will need clamping inwards.

 

While all that was setting, I decided to take a look at the Torpedo tubes as supplied by Coastal Craft models. The set is not too bad, but a little lacking when it comes to the rear ends of the tubes, due to the casting trees. Much of the rear end detail gets lost in the cutting away and cleaning up process, which I guess is inevitable, given these are resin casts. This picture shows what I mean. Should be easy enough to clean up, and one option is to use the ends from the kit, as they look a little tidier and symetric. 

 

They are a much refined improvement on the kit items overall though, and appear truer to the prototype. These are those in the kit:

 

The bottom longitudinal supports have to be cut away from the kit in order to be used to support the actual tubes:

 

The etch for the set (two full tubes and associated etch in each pack) is really quite well done. There are eight supports (four per tube) two shoulder pieces (one per tube), and some fine etched detail to go on the tubes themselves.

 

This is one of the eight supports with the idea being that the two longitudinal pieces cut from the Airfix kit, has for of these along the top, which in turn support the actual tube. There are three etched parts to each support, and they are quite a challenge to assemble. One down fifteen more to go for the whole boat! I think you will agree they do look quite neat.

 

What is slightly puzzling is the inclusion of these four additional resin supports in each set of two complete Tubes. So thats two per tube. 

 

Nowhere in the instructions does it mention, or show, what these are for. It does show the completed tube however (poor quality shot below), and the resin supports are nowhere to be seen.

 

I may have missed the point but I'm stumped. I can only assume they could be for some other fit to a non Vosper boat of this type? I will drop Coastal Craft a line to clarify.

 

Given the amount of time and effort required for each Torpedo tube (two in a set, two sets for one boat), I plan to make these one at a time, between the many other tasks I have planned for this build!

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Terry

[robgizlu]

Terry - the Resin supports are there to sit behind the aft of the tubes so as to slide torpedoes in.  If you have a look at my 380 over on RFI you'll see then from the aft boat views.  The original Airfix ones are pretty crude 

If that doesn't make sense - shout and I'll find some pics to illustrate

HTH

Rob

[Terry1954]

27 minutes ago, robgizlu said:

Terry - the Resin supports are there to sit behind the aft of the tubes so as to slide torpedoes in.  If you have a look at my 380 over on RFI you'll see then from the aft boat views.  The original Airfix ones are pretty crude 

If that doesn't make sense - shout and I'll find some pics to illustrate

HTH

Rob

That does make sense Rob. I had already removed the Airfix ones earlier in the thread, and I was expecting to have to build some! It's obvious now I think about it, two per tube at the rear.

 

Thanks for that, puzzlement over!

 

Terry

[JohnWS]

When I was researching stuff for my BPB MTB, I found that many boat crews removed the torpedo supports to reduce weight & increase speed.  The supports were re-installed while the torpedos were loaded, and removed again before leaving port.

 

John

[Courageous]

Those PE tube supports look pretty neat, all together, moving along nicely.

1 hour ago, JohnWS said:

reduce weight & increase speed

...must have been about 0.1knot. 

 

Stuart