61' Barnett class lifeboat

You'd think that after using 2 part epoxy such as Zap and otherts, for the past 30 odd years, I'd be able to mix two equal parts and glue my frames together......BUT NO!!!


Five of the frames stuck, and on the next mix, when handling them this morning fIVE OF THE FRAMES fell apart, much to my great anoyance....just wasted time.


So having cleaned all the old glue off and reglued the frames with cyano I sanded all that stuck and glued onto bases of 1.32 thick birch faced ply with aliphatic resin..........which are now all under weights and will be left for a couple or so hours to set. and the two remaining still have to be sanded as they were late arrivals in the "do it again" pile.......c'este la vie.

All frames now glued and levelled to give a straight deck, showing a lovely sheer to the hull.

Oncec glued and set in a few hours I'll start fitting the deck to the frames, to keep the backbone absolutely straight and not curved or twisted.

I hate a "banana" hull...........which would always come out in a grp mould.

By the way, the curve in th keel as shown going one way and then the other in those shots above, is attributed to the point and shoot camera lense of the small pocket camera i use, which distorts pictures very well.

I can assure you, the keel is perfctly straight.

And looking down the length of the frames in the 3rd pic, she is going to have a beautiful looking hull.

All raised cabin gratings now been stabalised and and sanded smooth on my belt sander.

They look well on the deck in the approximate position they will eventually sit in.

Which brings me to the next part.............and that is the gluing and fitting of the deck. But there in lies a small cockup, and a reference to my school days.

I was ABSOLUTELY USELESS at science in any form and although my problem stems from my fear of the subject it really wasn't a problem with the boat other than blanking out certain points, but I ,as an escape, blame it on science.

The shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line, and why a boat/ships length is measured between perpendiculars, and as such I measured the length of the deck I cut, between those two points.

I DIDN'T take into account the sheer of the deck, which ultimately alters the length of the deck.

So! I am going to have to cut the deck into two pieces.

It will eventually make it easier to fix in place the 2 halves and line them up, and I will be able to infill the small gap in the centre of the boat.............but it could also weeken the structure unless I reinforce it properly.........we shall see, eventually.

This really is a huge piece 'maritime woodwork' Neil. It's going to look magnificent! -and huge

George

i hope so George...........and once the hull is made for the plug, and moulded, all the hard work will be done, as almost everything else, fittings wise is done. the cabin itself will be a plug and moulds from solid obeche, unless the plug from the 51' Barnett that i still have can be modified to take a mould.

I once asked Mike Pendlebury a friend and fellow modeller about fittings on his scratch built lifeboats and where he got the ideas from, before the invention of the 3d printer was made available at cheap enough price for modellers to buy one.

Mike answered as expected......"Think laterally, and not as a modeller" and it is one of the best advices that anyone can give to those who want to scratch build..........not just lifeboats but any model.


Long before I actually started the build of my RNLB Princess Mary of Padstow, I was looking at the plans and thinking of parts I would need for detailing that I had never used before.


One of these parts was/is the survivers jump net. A large 12' x 12' net, suspended from four davits, enabling the lifeboat to come along side a casualty allowing the ships surviving crew to jump from the sinking vessel into the net.


NOW!!!, where could I get a square patterned [not octagonal] mesh net from.
It literally took me 5 minutes searching on eBay to find exactly what I wanted and needed! A "sock" bag.......a bag your ladies put their tights and ankle socks in to, draw up the string and put into the washing machine......no more missing socks.......even fellas' can use them.
And for the grand price of 0.99p, postage free. its even made of cotton and so will dye a deaper brown too. Success!!! sadly though, they have gone up to £5.23p.........i blame covid!


All I needed to do was to unpick the cotton stitching to open it out to the size needed, and will superglue along the perimeter edges to stop it from freying

i will endeavour to do that, Alberto .


and here's the latest tip.


Take an A4 size piece of plastic cross stich backing [ well, pay for it tbh...best thing to do, lol].........put supports into the frames you have made, and then cut to fit.....


Voila.......but for painting the grating brown, and laquering and varnishing the frames, the inner cabin raised gratings made.

Iast night I made the coxs'ns pedatal and grating plus the platform for the compas stand.

The frame for the grating was made from mahogany, and the rest from 1/16th ply in two payers to stop any warping..grain of the two layers going at right angles to each other.

Obviously, because the deck sheets were cut on the flat, and the deck actually follows the sheer of the boat, the deck was too short, and so had to be modified.

First, supports were glued to the cross frames to support the front section of deck, fore and aft, and then left overnight.

this morning i put glue on to all tops of the frames and supports, using aliphatic quick grab wood glue, and then, starting at the rear end of the front section, mating up to the fore part of the aft deck, where the deck is at its widest.

Using framing pins, and starting at the rear, i pinned the deck to the frames, finally using G cramps to hold the final part of the foreward part of the deck to the frames and supports.

This will be left for most of the day to thoroughly set and dry.

There is then a small strip about 25mm wide to fit at the bow section and put an upstand piece of ply to finalise the rased section of the fore peak.

Once that has all set by tomorrow, i shall be able to start filling in between the frames, using strips of obeche i bought a couple of weeks ago. Thats when the fun begins.

Like building a wall, one layer at a time, starting with one brick at a time.

Note, that the bricks are laid to be flush with the frames, not the deck line.

This is to keep the lines of the hull true and equal both sides.


This will be a very slow process now, so will only post when there is real progress in blocking up the hull.