RN Steam Picket boat (1900) 1/48th Scale

[Dave Richardson]

Beautiful little model you are building there, congratulations - really enjoying the build log.

I'm currently scratchbuilding a 1/72 steam pinnace as part of a planned HMS Dreadnought build in the same scale. Its nowhere near the skill level of yours I'm afraid, but I'm really enjoying the process!

I have really struggled to get any hull line drawings, even though I have several of the reference books mentioned in your thread. Even the magnificent Anatomy of the Ship book just has one profile and one plan drawing of Dreadnought's boats. Just wondered if you could point me in the right direction where I might obtain more detailed plans?

Apologies for the imposition, and many thanks in advance for any help you can give.

[PICKETBOAT]

Dave

I have contacted you via PM with some suggestions. I also had a problem with the profiles.

If it was a much larger model (16th scale?) then they would be vital. On 1/48th and smaller it's less of an issue.

[Dave Richardson]

Thanks a lot. PM reply sent!

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all

Having secured the deck in place I next ran medium thickness CA along the outside deck edge joint. Capillary action drew this into the joint and bonded the strip wood deck to the top edge of the hull. Inverting the hull when doing this meant that I did not get CA running down the outside of the vac formed hull and make a mess of it.

The deck at this stage was not sealed. I decided the fine grained mahogany planking looked pretty good, colour wise, so I applied a thinned coat of matt polyurethane varnish. The varnish made the black caulking lines show up just enough. When dry the deck was flatted down and the process repeated twice more before being rubbed down with some very fine nylon type abrasive pad. This �cut� the surface enough to enable deck fittings to be safely glued to the deck with CA glue.

I left this over night to dry and then used a sharp craft knife and sand paper to trim back the overhanging wooden deck, so that it was flush with the hull. By this stage the hull/deck unit had become very strong and rigid but was still very light weight.

I had moulded the vac formed hull with a small groove along its top edge. This was designed to accept the strip of timber which made up the deck edge.

The deck edge timber was only 1.5mm by 3mm. This had its top edge rounded off with fine sand paper. It was then seated in the groove along the top edge of the hull moulding and secured with CA. It was positioned so that its top (rounded edge) stood 1mm above the deck, therefore reproducing the deck edge of the prototype boat. This strip was held in place with clamps tape and rubber bands till the glue set.

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all

As this was intended as a working (wet) model I had to ensure it was not going to ship ANY water when in use. The main deck aperture was under the boiler room roof, so I figured fitting a small coaming around the edge of the aperture would exclude water. I cut a strip of 1mm plastic card and glued this in place around the edge of this aperture using solvent weld adhesive. The 5mm deep coaming just fitted neatly underneath the edge of the boiler room roof, when it was in place, and helped locate it.

You will notice I had cut away the deck area under the crew accommodation roof as well. This was helpful when installing the electrical gear below deck and I originally had the idea that this too would be removable, however it soon became apparent that once the electrical equipment was installed any maintenance could be done from within the body of the hull. I therefore glued the crew accommodation roof in place when all the detailing and painting was finished.

Cutting away the deck underneath this structure however did save the odd gram of weight. Every little counts.

The picture shows the coaming installed.

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all

After fitting the deck edge timbers, I started to install the thin rubbing strake along the edge of the hull. This thin timber strip was carefully glued in place with CA and held with clamps/tape till the glue set. It was then carefully sanded to give it a rounded cross section.

The stern was also given an edging timber. Photos and plans also show a rounded timber extending partly down the aft corners of the hull. This appears to be protection for the hull on these vulnerable corners which must have been constantly knocked against ships and jetties. Again this was trimmed to shape glued in place then sanded to the correct rounded shape.

When I was happy with all these little bits of wood along the deck edge, they were given three coats of thinned matt polyurethane varnish the same as the deck.

[Folgore]

Oh,

it's shaping up well! I especially like the wooden deck.

Regards

Chrischan

[PICKETBOAT]

Chrischan

Thanks. Re wooden planked decking. In this model the sub deck is plastic card so I used CA glue to secure the planks. On some of my other models the sub deck is thin ply. I experimented for a long time to find a suitable glue to secure the planks.

Some of the modellers out there might find this interesting. I was looking for a glue that had:-

A good quick "grab"
Was quick drying
Did not bleed through the timber planks
Was easy (and not messy)to apply
Had a low moisture content (water makes the planks curl up) so PVA was ruled out.
Reasonably water proof (for working models)
And was sandable (should any little bits squeeze through).

The one glue that "ticked all these boxes" was good old fashioned BALSA CEMENT!

Its just so easy. Apply a thin bead to the reverse of the plank and press it into place. Hold it down for about 60 secs and repeat with the next plank, working out from the king plank. I inserted little tabs of 0.25mm plastic card at the "end of plank" joints. which were removed when the glue had set. These gaps and any other small gaps were filled with black acrylic deck caulking before the deck was finally sanded smooth and varnished.

It might not work on very small scales but was easy and very effective at 1/48th scale.

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all

The next stage involved the use of some of the cast resin components I had made previously. Small items that needed drilling, like port holes, were best drilled (using a pin vice, as the resin is quite soft) before they were removed from the casting base.

The hinges for the rudder were also drilled before they were removed and glued into place on the transom. Inserting the brass wire through the hinges ensured they were lined up before the CA glue set. Great care was taken to ensure I didn�t glue the wire into the hinges.

Contemporary photos show two metal reinforcing plates secured to the transom either side or the rudder post (red arrow). These were cut from 0.5mm plastic card and carefully set into the deck edge timbers. The holes drilled in these plates will carry �eye bolts� which are the securing points for the Jack Staff. Two other horizontal plates were also identified on photos but I have no idea what they were for. These were also reproduced in 0.5mm plastic card.

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all

The main deck structures were removed from the vac formed sheets with a scalpel.

The boiler room roof has a small base flange around its edge as per the original vessel.

The port holes were carefully opened out using a tapered hand ream, a really useful tool particularly when dealing with thin plastic sheet.
I'm sure most model makers will have already discovered these tools. I small pilot hole was drilled first; the ream was then used to remove a small amount of material at a time, until the holes were the correct size. The shank of a twist drill bit can be used to check the size. Using a large drill to create the holes would risks tearing and damaging the thin plastic.

The cabin roof was cut away as this was to be a removable item giving access to the power on/off switch mounted in the deck.

[wefalck]

Yes, reaming-out holes to the correct size is a good practice. In the watchmaking trade they have tapered five-sided cutting broaches that go down to almost microscopic dimensions.

The model is coming along nicely, btw.

wefalck

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi Wefalk, Hi all

The tapered ream was also used to open up the two holes which accept the two boiler room ventilators. These fittings were removed from the casting base again using a fret saw. I ensured they are a neat fit and are well secured with CA glue. This is important as the securing mechanism for the removable boiler room roof will be fastened into the bottom of these casings. More of this later.

[Neptune]

Some real professional work here!!! Never saw that kind of tool, would be useful to me as well. I'll have a look for one at the model fair next weekend.
Your casting work is pretty smooth as well. Can't wait to see the end result.

[PICKETBOAT]

Neptune

I cant remember where I got it from. I first saw one being used for plastic/styrene work in a Dave Wooley article and straight away thought "I want one of those". Since then I have thought "how did I ever manage without this tool."

Probably a good UK source would be Squires.

Wefalk is right, clock makers broaches work on the same principal and are MUCH smaller, so would be great for small scale work.

These tools do create a hole which does not have parallel sides. Not an issue on thin sheet material (they do work on non ferrous too), but could be a problem if you are working in thicker material. This idiosyncrasy can also be turned into an advantage. When installing the ventilators I as able to get a nice interference fit as the casting locating boss only came into contact with the narrowest part of the hole. I was then able to capillary CA glue into the joint (the slightly wider part of the hole) from underneath. A very secure non messy joint can be achieved this way.

These tapered reams do work on wood but struggle with some softwoods and balsa, as they clog easily, and leave the hole "fuzzy" around the edge.

[wefalck]

Reamers of all sizes and types are carried by (model) engineering or horology supply houses.

There are straight reamers with either straigth or spiral flutes to create precise diameter holes with smooth walls. They come as 'hand reamers' with a square at the end for a handle bar, or as 'machine reamers' with a round shaft smaller than the diameter of the reamer to be chucked up into machine tools.



Tapered reamers for pins (usually 1:50 taper) for chucking in machine tools.



Tapered reamers for thin (metal) sheets with a cross bar:



Small 'cutting broaches', which are tapered and five-sided, used in horology to ream to size holes in hands etc.:



Small 'smoothing broaches', which are tapered hardened pieces of metal to burnish the holes in hands etc.:



And speciality reamers to ream to size and shape e.g. the Morse tapers in machine tools.

One has to be cautious when using metal reamers on wood, they dull quite quickly, because of the too big cutting angle.

wefalck

[PICKETBOAT]

Wefalk

Thanks for this very helpful info. I have a horology catalog which carries these small cutting broaches and I think I will order a selection. These would be useful for smaller tasks than the tapered hand ream can cope with. Having said that I have no intention of moving away from my favorite 1/48th scale into anything smaller.

[PICKETBOAT]

Hi all

This model build jumped about a bit (from one sub component to another), while elements were drying or glue was setting. This was also probably to do with its small size.

At this point I moved back to the vac formed deck cabin. The window frames were removed from the resin casting and their out lines were drawn onto the cabin body. I cut out the apertures in the vac formed cabin, slightly on the small size to start with.

The window frames were glued and carefully positioned in place and left to dry.

It was easy to trim the apertures to size with a sharp scalpel, working up to the inside of the window frames.

The rear wall of the cabin was next removed so that the vac formed wall component plus door recess fitted neatly.

A second 1mm thick roof panel was cut out (also with a square cut out in the top) and glued in place. The reason for this was to hide/remove the inevitable curved top edge of the cabin roof. These �non crisp� corners are one of the failings of Vac Forming and they either have to be re worked of disguised. A little filler worked along the edge joint gave a nice crisp corner.

[Folgore]

Picketboat

Man, you are fast!

Aside from that it`s very good looking.

Regards

Chrischan

[PICKETBOAT]

Crischan

I'm not that fast. You should be aware that my on "line builds" are NOT real time. I couldn't cope with the pressure of that.

The picket boat model is finished (research, design, mould making and construction were spread over 4 months). I kept detailed notes and photos of both this build, and the German Torpedo Boat V105 (1914), gestation period 3 years, then posted the build details over a much shorter time period and during the cold and wet winter months.
The only unfair bit about this is that I tend to miss out my mistakes and blunders unless I consider other model makers might learn from them.

I hope no body thinks this is too unfair.

[Folgore]

salami-slice strategy