Princess Elizabeth build...

[mjt60a]

THe CD cases were ones I found dumped at work (did I mention I work for the council?) but I have bought them myself before, you can get them from Dixons, Morrisons (probably ASDA and Tesco too) PC World, Ryman.... probably pick some up cheap on Ebay...
They're styrene (like the canopy on an airfix aircraft kit) so just styrene cement - either liquid in a bottle or the usual sticky stuff in a tube will work, just need to keep it off the visible areas 
ps...DVD+R cases are the same thing - I bought some for storing digital photos and they have the cases with them!

[mjt60a]

Managed to find another model shop friday (in westcliff) they do mostly r/c cars/trucks and planes/helicopters but I did manage to get some more brass nuts - so I rebuilt the star centres and master rods to a smaller diameter. This time I've made the master rods of styrene with brass tube bearings as I notice in reality, they're not the same as the others but square/rectangular in section and look much heavier (assume they're balanced by having them 180 degrees apart on 3 cylinder engines or both together, 135 (?) degrees opposite either crank on diagonal twins - if that makes sense at all...) As I'm having independent drive from motors, they can't be balanced (might not make any real difference on the model) but the styrene ones are about the same weight as the other brass rods - I have some suitable brass I could have cut them from but they'd be about 5 times the weight...
Anyway, I assembled the port wheel just to see if it's going to work and it looks OK now, I'll need to make 5 more rods for the other one and intend to paint the new parts before finally fitting them on.
 

[mjt60a]

Assembled the starboard wheel as well now - but it's much the same as the port one so didn't bother taking a picture...
Added the rail capping to the bridge, it's styrene painted Tamiya red-brown matt acrylic with dark oak woodstain/varnish (combined - hate using it on real wood, much prefer wood dye and clear varnish - but that's another subject) it turned out quite good so I may use that for the rail capping on the promenade deck and the masts when the time comes... need to paint a figure to be helmsman, get a ships wheel and binnacle and make the telegraphs before the roof can be fitted - probably won't bother with the speaking tubes and pigeon holes with rolled flags - I don't actually know what was in the wheelhouse and you can't see that well inside with the roof on anyhow!
*picture attached now!

[mjt60a]

...I see in pictures of the ship as I'm building it, there are four 'tannoy' type speakers, one under each bridge wing, one on the front of the promenade deck between the stairways and one on the deck house... I'm considering using these to make them

[mjt60a]

Latest bits and pieces.....
I don't seem to be able to get anything done 'after work' these days, I'm just too tired and don't trust myself to do anything intricate....so it all happens on saturday/sunday mornings....
Bridge/wheelhouse - went to the shop to get some fittings and came back with just a steering wheel, they don't seem to have anything much in 1/48th so had a go at making the telegraphs and pedestal (for want of the correct term) for the wheel to go on. Used mostly styrene tube and sheet of various diameters/thicknesses. The larger areas were then covered in silver tape and smaller ones painted silver before the whole thing is painted with yellow translucent glass paint (for making fake stained glass windows) I feel the result, though not ideal, is better than gold paint (even the humbrol one called polished brass) The steering fitting is made using styrene tubes (three diameters that fit into each other) and a pointy thing off the bottom of a firework - I just knew those had a modelling use! - pointy thing is painted an industrial grey colour, like streetlamps and railway signal gantries,  the cylinder at the top is treated the same as the telegraphs... 

[mjt60a]

Paddlewheels... Also made the 5 other feathering rods for the starbd wheel (well, started on them anyhow) I made a new 'bodge-up' frame thingy to hold them while soldering and it works much better than the old one, which caught fire and nothing much was left of it 
Hopefully, the pictures are self explanatory...

[mjt60a]

...next, the tubes are cut using a cut-off disc in the expo drill so there's a 'ring' of brass tube left on the end of each rod - which the bearing will go into 

[Eddy Matthews]

Love the telegraph Mick, very nicely done!

One thing concerns me about the feathering rods though, if you use a cutting disc to slice them off it will be very easy to get too much heat into the brass tube and melt the solder!

Regards
Eddy

[mjt60a]

It worked OK on the other ones, I don't think it will get hot enough to melt the solder but even so, I cut a bit, let it cool, cut a bit more etc. until it's done - this is because it gets too hot to hold fairly quickly if I try to do it all in one go.
One thing I did find is that if there's a lot of solder (and there is on some of the joints) the disk wears away rapidly.
This is the result of cutting away the excess brass tube...
*edit - now I see the picture enlarged like that I see some of the ends are thicker than others but they can easily be filed down a bit more, plus the solder will need cleaning up a bit... I'm sure they'll be fine 

[derekwarner_decoy]

Hi PD's....Mick just an idea....make a simple jig of two rods...close fitting to the holes in the feathering arm disk ends...then fix both ends of the rods securely in another fixture

You can then add all of the feathering arms....add a little bakers soldering flux & gently heat each end with a micro gas burner - you will end up with a much finer & uniform solder joint ......Derek

[mjt60a]

I think that would work very well, they're all done now but something to consider when I make another set (and I will, having made one set like this, non feathering wheels would seem a step backwards on any future models!) I must invest in a miniature gas torch, I only have a full size one - hence using the gas cooker, it's a bit more controlable...

[mjt60a]

Just a few little but time consuming things done this week, made a couple of 'double' telegraphs for the bridge wings, I don't know if that's correct for the ship but as there's a capstan* both ends (so far as I can tell) and I only see one** telegraph each side of the bridge, assume it'd be a double sided one...
Painted and fitted the steering wheel. for some reason I was thinking it'd have a more modern-looking 'all metal' one but that's all I could find (and anyway,no photos to confirm what type should be there)...
Painted and assembled the feathering mechanisms... Now, here's the thing - if I'd thought this through I should have made the frames for the wheels narrower, then the feathering mechanism would fit inside the overhanging ends of the floats. As it is, the frames are very close to the outside (and inside) edges so I need to see if all this stuff will fit in the paddle drum    I think it will but may have to find another way of attaching the stub axle for the star centre (had planned to use brass collets fixed onto the removable side belting) ....

*capstan both ends.... as there are 'holes' for anchor chains, I guess it's a windlass at the bow but on photos there seems to be a capstan on top of it (some type of windlass I hadn't seen before maybe, with an extra vertical winch drum ?)
**one telegraph each side... or is there? I've only seen one photo showing the bridge wing in any detail (last edition of paddle wheels) I only see one telegraph and there's a 'tube' under it which I assume has the mechanical linkage inside, but looks like there's another tube next to it so maybe they had an engine room tele on there also for ease of mooring? can't really tell as there is a crew member in front of it...

[Stuart Badger]

It's coming on really nicely!

When you get to this stage I usually find that you have to make a choice between what you can actually learn from photos and plans and what is believable. It all looks great to me. I wish you luck with the stars - I always struggle with them!

all the best

stuart

[mjt60a]

This is what I made to support the stub axle... (picture)
the ends will be trimmed off, drilled and bolted to frames under the sponson. This part has to be removeable to allow fitting/removal of the wheels.
As I feared, the meccano collets are too wide to fit between the paddlebox wall and the star centre, so...
I thought I might be able to file them thinner as there's plenty of metal either side of the grub screws - but it was taking forever.... I bought one of those 'flexi-discs' from the model engineer exhibition some years ago and on the demo going on there it was shown how it works on rusty nails and screws that won't come out...so I tried that...it ground about a third of the collet away in five seconds flat!
With both sides done I soldered the now much thinner collet to a strip of brass and bent it to fit under the sponson....still a bit too tight...but I have some alternative solutions...

[mjt60a]

...I could grind down the top of the collet so it fits behind the paddlebox wall....