Princess Elizabeth build...

[mjt60a]

little bit more progress on the interior, also made the roof of the deck house/stairway and engine room ventilators - and had another (longer this time) trip on waverley, london tower pier to southend.....weather was rubbish again but less cold, shame it wasn't on friday - still it was good and on arrival at southend the queue of waiting passengers stretched back to the rail station...

[mjt60a]

had a go at making a 'representation' (not sure exactly what they're like) of the two lighthouse-shape ventilators on the promenade deck. the only photos I have don't show them very clearly and looking at pictures of other ships shows several different shapes..... so this is what I've come up wth...
....the tops were made by heating styrene sheet over a candle then poking different diameter rods into it, pins worked best for this scale!
the resulting funnel shape is then cut out, filed to a circular shape, thinned a bit by rubbing on sandpaper then glued on. they should have a ball shape on the top so I'll addd that soon as I find something suitable...

[mjt60a]

been a bit ill for the last week (nothing serious, still been going to work) so not much more done at all, but I did finish these vent thingies. for the ball top, I used some plastic balls with a hole through, not sure what they're meant for but they came with a billing boats 'sea star' kit with the included fittings - I think they were for threading onto part of the rigging, some type of aerial maybe? anyhow pictures show these vents and the engine room ones stuck on with blu-tack...  they'll do 

[mjt60a]

carried out a few floatation tests. blocked the holes where the bow section fits with blu-tack, put servos, rx and batteries in, cut pieces of lead and put them in, got the hull (aft/main section) sitting just right - then realised I need to do this with all the superstructure in place! Put it on and....  way too much ballast, lucky I didn't glue it in!
took most of the ballast out again and it seems to be ok, didn't see any leaks even pushing it down until the water is up to main deck.
then attached the bow section (barely fits in the 'tank') and tried rocking it to see how long 'til it sits upright again, very impressed, it's actually quite stable though much heavier than I expected    hopefully the masts and railings won't add too much more weight or I'll have to take the rest of the lead out and move the batteries..... think it'll be ok though...

[Stuart Badger]

Looking good! - So how close are the sea trials?

All the best

Stuart

[mjt60a]

how long 'til sea trials? I get very little done due to work and when I said 'put the servos and rec in' I meant just dropped them loose into the hull (hence the list to port on the first two pictures) need to make a plate of some kind to fit them in and make and connect the rudder...
...it'll be a while longer before I can take it to southend...

[mjt60a]

This (last) weekend I bought some 1.5mm thinwall brass tube and had a go at making railings using 0.8mm brassed wire and an electric soldering iron and radio solder..... I used a cut-off disc in the expo drill to cut slots in the tube and laid the wire into them. doesn't look too bad after cleaning up with a miniature file then painting (the ball joints are represented by adding spots of two part epoxy resin with a pin before painting)
Ideally it should be 1mm tube and 0.5 wire but the wire seemed a bit 'easily damaged' on a model that would be handled, transported etc. so I'll probably stick with the 1.5/0.8.....
...I'll see how it looks with the wooden rail capping on - when I figure out how to make it!

[Tug--Kenny]

...I'll see how it looks with the wooden rail capping on - when I figure out how to make it!

Nice structure Mick. I like welding brass tubes together as it make a sturdy assembly. The wire should be multi core to allow for bending and the brass rails could be used for the earth connection.
The capping rail is easy enough if you make and glue the  45 degree joints first. (there is going to be hole in these joints at the corners).   When dry, I mark the tops of the stanchions with a felt tip pen and place the capping rail on top to mark the hole positions. These are then drilled to a tight fit half way through and the assembly is then pushed on with some super glue.

Hope this helps

Ken

[mjt60a]

I had forgotten something which should have been done before painting....
every picture I've seen of this ship shows a canvas (?) sheet attatched to the railings over the front of the promenade deck. The PBM model has pre-shaped styrene for this and I like how it looks and wanted something similar-looking.
After two abortive attempts I settled on this....
Covered the railings with cooking foil and pressed it gently against them so the rails and stanchions show through a bit... cut a piece from an old ( not too old) shirt and ironed it smooth then trimmed it to a little bigger than is needed.
hold it in place over the foil using clothes pegs to start with and apply sanding sealer until the cloth is soaked through and lays in the depressions in the foil. allow to dry (once it's had sealer applied to a fairly large area, clothes pegs can be removed and it stays in position)
when it's dry to the touch remove the foil from the railings and attempt to remove the cloth, allow the 'inside' to complete drying (this causes it to roll up but it won't matter!) the cloth can then be trimmed to the required size without fraying and should 'fit' onto the railings. I left some 'tabs' on the top edge which can be bent over and glued to the bottom of the rail capping later.
I then painted the cloth matt white, as the saeler turned it a bit yellow and when dry, stitched the ends to the end stanchions with white cotton.
I haven't glued any of it together yet as the rail capping isn't quite finished but it looks OK so far 

[mjt60a]

not much progress this weekend, went to the shoeburyness model rail show at southend, got a few things I thought may come in useful one day (10ba screws and nuts, aliphatic resin wood glue and 1.32 scale passenger figures) and another coil of 0.8mm brassed wire.
spent this morning making 'preparations' for the next run of railings on the front of the promenade deck. this consisted of making a paper template, marking the positions of the stanchions then transferring to a ply template so I can drill through the holes into the deck, and assemble the railings on the template - they should then fit in the deck! also I can use it to make the rail capping later...
...should be able to just turn it over for the other side (it does seem to fit so should be OK....
pictures when I have some results....

[mjt60a]

...the ply template turned out to be too thin to hold the stanchions firmly enough so used it to drill the holes into a scrap piece of chip board (usually used when drilling through things) and constructing one of them on that instead, then used the ply to ensure the tops all lined up...
...having got the three rails soldered in, thought it'd be best to check it fits on the model before bothering to clean it up with files and continue.... it fitted perfectly 
...now I can think about how I'm going to represent the boarding gates, on waverley, they look the same as the stanchions (more or less) so I'll probably just cut some more of those....

[mjt60a]

tidied up the solder joints on the railings this morning but haven't done anything else model related, been busy at work clearing snow and spreading grit in the perishing cold, too tired when I get home to do anything but sleep!

[kno3]

How do you solder the railings? With a flame or an iron?

[mjt60a]

I'm using an electric iron and electronics solder, seems to be strong enough for this as there's no load on it at all. I think the iron is about 25 watts, had it years now and can't remember but it probably had details on the packaging...

[mjt60a]

this boarding gate has been giving me problems....  the only close-up I have appears to show a single wide gate but I'm sure it was in two parts like waverleys, maybe it was altered at some time and I have been looking at an 'older' photo.
the first pic shows this older photo and in the second I tried to digitally remove the inner gate to make the outer one more clear.