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70ft 9in British Power Boat Company MGB 1942 1:48th Scale


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1 hour ago, Steve D said:

 Guns have to be brass in my world, no exceptions....

 

  This is in two halves to allow slots for the glazing.  

 

The first phrase is beautiful! :)

The second phrase emphasizes the filigree of the work.

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Sorry, having so much fun with the Räumboot drawing, I've neglected this build a bit.  Really, I'm thinking through when to start priming the model, normally I would have it in primer by now, but this time I decided to do as much construction as I could before paint.  So, I've been a little stuck on what to make, the guns are later, so I've been filling in on odd stuff.

 

In particular the mast and the IFF aerial.

 

The main mast was sanded to a taper from 1/8 inch lime.  I did this in the lathe with a sleeve in the end-stock.  This works OK , it tapers down to 2.4 mm (3/32nd inch).

 

DSCN2555

 

The mast has an upper spar holding the Type 286 aerial which is quite a fiddly assembly.  Lots of silver-soldering tube to wire.  Here is a not very good shot of the first trial fit (notice one of the small transvers wires has come adrift, needs fixing back).  There is a lower yard to add but this will be in wood and fixed with rigging, not part of the assembly.  The flag gaff is hinged to a mast band and the claxon sits on a platform on the lowest band.  36 pieces of brass in total

 

DSCN2556

 

Better shot also showing the IFF more clearly and the grab rails fitted to the top of the deck house

 

DSCN2557

 

DSCN2558

 

This shot also shows the wind-screen frame quite well, smoothed in with a little filler.  The third band up has two side rings to support the shackles that will anchor the stays (just visible)

 

Side ladder to the open bridge (called the dustbin apparently) next.  he rear ladders were etched so no work, but this ladder is a very prominent feature and needs to be made up from wire 

 

Cheers

 

Steve

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7 hours ago, JohnWS said:

She's ozzing awesomeness Steve.

Couldn't have put it better, one of those times when awesome is richly deserved, not like your everyday chuck away anything can be awesomes that have lost the true meaning of the word. Unlike here. :)

Steve.

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15 hours ago, robgizlu said:

Looks absolutely Fab!!

 

11 hours ago, JohnWS said:

She's ozzing awesomeness

 

4 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Couldn't have put it better,

Thanks guys, your consideration is always so much appreciated.  The challenge with 1:48th scale is that it is the smallest scale where is is almost possible to build true scale if you use brass, (for instance a 1 inch grab rail is ~0.5 mm diameter), and so the temptation is too great not to.  Accordingly, that aerial is horribly fragile, even though soldered, as you can see one of the pieces already fell off and needs re-soldering...  How you guys work at smaller scales simply baffles me, my clumsy fingers barely work at this scale these days.  One the other hand, 1/35th scale seems so big to me that the guns aught to fire :suicide: and the level of detail needed becomes ridiculous (components could actually be bolted together and so you know where I would end up going ...) 

 

I have a few shackles and eye bolts to make (rigging has to start somewhere) and then I have a decision, start the guns or start the primer  :hmmm: Watch this space....

 

Cheers

 

Steve

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12 minutes ago, Steve D said:

How you guys work at smaller scales simply baffles me,

Baffles me too, why I put myself through building 1/700 I’ll never know.
But what is more baffling, is how you produce such a beautiful boat from bits of wood and brass. 
THAT is real skill. :worthy:

She looks stunning.

Jon

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Steve,

was the mast made of metal or wood on real boats?

For a metal pipe, it seems to me a little thick. If it's made of wood, then everything is clear.

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5 minutes ago, Dmitriy1967 said:

was the mast made of metal or wood on real boats

The mast was timber, from the drawing, 6 inches diameter at its base, tapering to 4.5 inches at the top, so my mast is true scale. The upper mast was also timber but it would be too easily damaged modelled wood so I've made it from brass 

 

Check out this picture, you can see it's actually quite chunky

 

mgb75

 

Cheers

 

Steve

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11 minutes ago, Steve D said:

The mast was timber, from the drawing, 6 inches diameter at its base, tapering to 4.5 inches at the top, so my mast is true scale. The upper mast was also timber but it would be too easily damaged modelled wood so I've made it from brass 

 

 

I had no doubt that you correctly maintained the scale. It's just that a real dream seemed a bit thick for metal, that's why the question arose. Now I know it's made of wood, thanks, Steve!

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Only one picture today, after a failed attempt to make the dust-bin ladder from scratch (it looked horrible...) I found an old spare etched ladder that I was able to adapt to fit, this is OK

 

DSCN2563

 

very prominent feature, quite tricky to make, moving on....

 

Cheers

 

Steve

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The guns and more soldering won..

 

First, I made the ladder that is stowed on the starboard side of the deckhouse.  Note is has the weathered bashed look of a ladder with some service :banghead:  It's a skill....

 

DSCN2572[1]

 

The the twin Oerlikon mount.  Mmmm..  this is a new venture for me and they don't always go the way I intended, in particular in the months since I did the etch artwork, I'd completely forgotten what I intended 

 

These are the parts including that beautiful cast barrel assembly

 

DSCN2565

 

This sits in the cradle and is raised up from the cradle floor with those two rectangular pieces to the left.  Well, not enough it turns out, over 1mm short but come micro channel sorted that...

 

DSCN2566

 

The 0.8mm rod runs through the whole assembly and the cradle bocks on the mount, though there are a couple of turned spacers to insert later to centre it correctly

 

Then the base drum was made up seen to the left in this picture and the upper base piece folded ready for the sides which were cleaned up

 

DSCN2567

 

The sides hold the upper base to the base drum which sits on the centre pivot on the tub.  Each side is in two parts for thickness, the centre side also has a small lower plate to support the inside face of the cover plate

 

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And here it is resting in place after some tense soldering that unsoldered as much as it re-soldered, sigh...

 

DSCN2569

 

DSCN2571

 

Not great pictures sorry.  Tomorrow I'll attempt the sighting and elevating mechanism plus add the seat and foot rest.  Then once I'm happy I'll post some better pictures.  

 

Anyway,, I'm sure I can make this work, big relief

 

Love that cast gun...

 

Cheers

 

Steve

 

 

 

 

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It's always a bit rough at this stage Kev, but I wanted to show more of the process (which is quite haphazard). 

 

Hopefully I can get the rest together tomorrow and do more clean-up so it will look more complete and tidy

 

Thanks for the kind comment

 

Cheers

 

Steve

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4 hours ago, Dmitriy1967 said:

Excellent result!

Oh, I hope someday I'll learn how to solder too. At least a little... 

Dmitriy.

You should give soldering a go, it’s really not that difficult. I find the hardest part is holding the two pieces to be joined, given how small PE parts can be.

Jon

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21 minutes ago, Steve D said:

Every journey starts with the first step 👣

 

17 minutes ago, Faraway said:

Dmitriy.

You should give soldering a go, it’s really not that difficult. I find the hardest part is holding the two pieces to be joined, given how small PE parts can be.

Jon

 

I have already started choosing a soldering iron....  :)

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2 minutes ago, Dmitriy1967 said:

 

 

I have already started choosing a soldering iron....  :)

It is worth having one that you can adjust the temperature, and use a good quality solder and flux. Don’t rely on solder with a flux core, they work, but putting a separate flux on the join really does draw the solder into the join and makes it much neater.

Jon

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52 minutes ago, Faraway said:

It is worth having one that you can adjust the temperature, and use a good quality solder and flux. Don’t rely on solder with a flux core, they work, but putting a separate flux on the join really does draw the solder into the join and makes it much neater.

 

Yes to all that.

 

For solder get something that is very small, something around 0.5mm would be good - a little goes a long way especially on small parts. Also, cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanliness - make sure the part well cleaned and degreased, wipe with a bit of alcohol before applying flux. And remember - solder flows toward the heat source, sometimes you can make a joint by applying heat on one side of join and putting just wee bit of solder on the other side. 

 

cheers, Graham

 

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15 hours ago, Dmitriy1967 said:

I have already started choosing a soldering iron..

Personally, while I have a couple of soldering irons, I mostly use an Oxy-Propane torch with a mico flame nozzle, soldering irons won't go near the temperatures needed for silver-soldering and once you get used to using the heat, it's 10x faster than a soldering iron on soft solder or paste....

 

Still I agree with all the above, clean surfaces, use flux, heat from the side you want to draw the solder towards and make sure the items are touching as it's very hard to make solder jump a gap.  Also as Jon says, the challenge is not the actual soldering which should take seconds, it's the holding items ready to solder.  As you can see I'm my images, I tend to use drawing pins to get it all ready. For small scratch components (wire tube etc) I cut long, solder and them trim back with a micro drill and cutting disks or sanding wheels.  So much easier.  The other thing I have is have a spray water bottle ready to cool the work before touching.  For soft solder, enough heat can be retained (especially is one side is a heavy turned part) for the joint to still be mobile and moving stuff early (I'm always impatient) ruins the joint

 

Cheers

 

Steve

 

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