Using Old Bits and Pieces

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

I must admit I was a bit surprised when I looked at he model boat section here and saw relatively little activity.  Spending most of my time with boats, in particularly steam powered ones I though I might as well add something here.

This was a lockdown project and came about as a result of deciding to use up some of my collection of hulls and steam plant that I had lying around. This actually started many years ago when I purchased what was sold as a static display model of a Titanic lifeboat:

Despite being crude in some respects it was nevertheless a clinker built wooden model of an open boat with internal compartments and thwarts, lending itself to quite a wide range of potential scales.   The inspiration for the purchase was that I had seen some pictures of the very same model used to house a steam plant and be turned into an open steam powered work launch.  I had always fancied something similar but I really wanted to increase the sense of presence on the water so 1/6th scale always appealed to me.

After another good dig around the workshop I came across the Miniature Steam Clyde plant that was used for a review article in Model Boats Magazine a number of years ago:

I knew from what I had seen that the hull would comfortably support a small steam plant but I wasn’t sure if a 1/6th figure would prove to be too big so it was time to start collecting some of the bits I didn’t have and test the feasibility of whether this could become a working model.

I had a 1/6th action figure earmarked for another open boat project so he was borrowed and two of the central thwarts were cut out of the model to allow the boiler plant to sit in the bottom of the boat:

The Clyde plant was originally supplied in kit form to support a review article in the September 2012 edition of Model Boats Magazine:

The entire plant is very compact and the gas tank and separator sit on a common base with the boiler and engine.  The engine is a twin cylinder double acting oscillator with a built in control valve very similar in configuration to the old Cheddar Puffin engine but made with more modern materials,

The flue and the boiler top were both treated to an acid primer before a series of painted weathering effects in enamels and acrylics were added to create a burnt paint look.  Dark grey enamel ‘soot’ was added to the top of the flue with an airbrush and a thinned down soot was airbrushed over the upper surfaces of the boiler and the lagging:

All the boiler fittings and the engine were painted with a typical engine green gloss enamel before a dirty enamel wash was painted over everything to matt down the paint and create more realistic shadow areas.  The gas tank was painted in the same green and then weathered over and all the bare brass fittings were also treated to a dirty wash:

 

 

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

To fit the plant into the model I decided to use the two thwarts that were cut from the model as bearers for the plant.  They were fitted to the base plate of the boiler with some small stainless steel allen screws and nuts, trimmed to size and then glued into the base of the boat with a couple of pieces of wood on the ends to stiffen up the joint.  The positioning needed to be fairly central for stability purposes and still leave enough room for the shaft and a coupling at the rear:

Once the boiler bearers were set in place I decided to fit some wooden gratings to a couple of longitudinal supports level with the boiler base to finish off the lower area of the boat.  These were made up from wooden gratings kits:

While there is a huge range of 1/6th scale action figures available a great number of them are at an eye watering price.  This was meant to be a low cost project so it was decided that a cobbled together approach was probably going to work best.  Consequently all parts were sourced from an on line auction site where the body of the figure was purchased separately from the head and the German Naval uniform which, when all brought together looked the part:

All the other accessories that would be placed in the boat would reflect the time and location and would fit in with the figure.  Buying all the bits and pieces in this way made a big difference to the overall cost and kept it in reasonable levels.  The figure was going to be sat in the rear of the boat in what I would expect to be a fairly typical location for such a boat.  This meant he had to be close to the engine control servo, which I anticipated would be fitted to the next thwart along.  He needed to be removable but also secure so two holes were drilled into his rear and two brass tubes glued into them with epoxy:

I put a lot of thought into where the electronics would be located to make the arrangement as easy as possible to put into the model while still keeping everything hidden.  I decided that the engine servo would sit on the thwart next to the engine with the cable running below the thwart:

The steering servo would sit on the aft deck with the cable running in a brass ‘conduit’ so the receiver and battery pack would sit very nicely on top of one of the nearby side compartments.  This meant that two scratch built lockers were going to be needed to hide the bits.  These were built in place from sheets of dolls house flooring and scraps of softwood:

They were detailed with dolls house hinges and fitted with magnets to hold them in place.  Being built in place they fit the side of the boat perfectly:

So not only do they look the part but they hide the receiver, battery and on/off switch:

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Looks like a great mixture of competent modelling endeavour and good fun in just the right proportions – I mustn’t look..

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

very imaginative. Can you say a bit about fitting the stern tube and prop which I assume it was not originally designed for.

[Bazyle]

On Bazyle Said:

very imaginative. Can you say a bit about fitting the stern tube and prop which I assume it was not originally designed for.

Coming soon!

[Author]

Posts