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Unfortunately my leave has been messed around quite a bit this time hime so I haven't had a lot of time to get to grips with the Ben Ain. I made the most of what i had though and progressed the bridge unit that bit more. Still not quite finished but getting tantalisingly close and not a lot left to do to it now. The temptation is always to rush it a bit as I approach the end of a leave which is the last thing I want to get into. Anyway here is the latest update.
Moving that bit further the decorative strip was glued around the top outside edge of the bulwarks maintaining a consistent distance from the capping rail and then the flying bridge details could be worked on. The binnacle was made in just the same way as the one inside the bridge and finished with a gold paint with an overcoat of Tamiya Clear acrylic “Smoke” to give it an aged patina and the wheel and telegraph were both painted up, assembled and fitted to the flying bridge. The steps up to the flying bridge were fitted in exactly the same way as the ones were made from the main deck to the bridge deck but in the case with these care had to be taken to ensure that they accommodated the camber of the two decks. Another detail item to be reworked was the life belts to be hung on the bridge bulwarks. The white metal ones were good enough but I was concerned again about unnecessary weight and I thought that I could do better anyway. I turned a piece of dowel down to 20mm and then ran a 12mm drill down the centre of it. I parted off 4mm pieces which gave me nice wooden rings that then had to be smoothed over to give an even and flattened ring shape. These were then whipped with fine cord to make the rope work and the grab handles which gave a much more realistic appearance as well as being considerably lighter than the originals. I then made wooden brackets for them all before finally mounting them on the bulwarks and giving then a couple of coats of satin yacht varnish. The life rings were painted with Humbrol matt enamels and the rope was protected with a coat of matt clear varnish.
Further painting around the bridge unit and the fitting of final detailed items such as hand rails, mushroom vents, canvas dodger stanchions and the mast crutch finally completed the bridge unit. The supplied white metal canvas dodger stanchions proved to be a bit on the soft side so they were replaced with brass items and painted white before fitting to the capping rail. All that remained for the bridge unit at this stage was the fitting of one or two figures and some final careful weathering but this will mostly be done when the entire model is completed and the weathering finish will be applied throughout at the same time.
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“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"
Richard, Thanks for the interesting articles. You aged the binnacle with Tamiya Clear acrylic 'Smoke'. I see the Tamiya range lists x19 - smoke and x22 clear. Am I right in assuming you are mixing these two together? Regards, Tony
Tamiya X-19 is Clear Smoke. It is one of thier translucent colours, they do a blue, an orange and a red for instance, useful for such things as vehicle light fittings and the 'smoke' is very usefull for playing around with weathering and metallic effects. Translucent because of course you can see through the paint quite clearly when it has dried and why Tamiya refer to it as Clear Smoke.
I have used it straight from the bottle and mixed with thinners depending on how strong an effect I am after.
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“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"
My wife always asks why I have so much more patience with my modelling than I do with her!!
I am now not home again until mid December so everything grinds to a halt until then. I really want to get the bridge unit finished then though and make a sizeable impression on the rear accommodation unit. As always though a lot of work to do and I can see myself spending a lot of time on details such as the lifeboats.
I'm glad the thread is helpful for you and can maybe give you some ideas to play around with.
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“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"
The actual progress of the Ben Ain Model took a bit of a breather next as attentions were turned towards completing two significant modifications to the steam plant. The first of which was to move the boiler back a little bit more and the second being the fitting of a gas regulating valve.
After numerous fitting trials with the newly completed bridge unit and the fiberglass rear accommodation section in place it was becoming apparent that the boiler needed to be about 5mm further back to get the flue central in the funnel. One option was to simply put the funnel central to the flue but as the top of the fiberglass unit was marked with plate detail one of the areas was clearly defined as the section that the funnel should be centralized in so to a trained eye it may look slightly out. I decided that I could move the boiler back the required distance by remaking the steam supply pipe to the engine and have an arrangement whereby the pipe did not enter the engine horizontally but entered via a 90 degree elbow. This entailed making up an elbow from two fittings silver soldered together to fit the control valve threads and fitting it to a complete new steam supply pipe, complete with “T” piece for the blowing through line.
With the new pipe in place the boiler could be moved back the required 5mm and further measurements indicated that the boiler flue would now be considerably more centralized in the funnel.
The next modification was the fitting of a gas regulating valve on the gas tank. One of the main reasons for having the gas tank and the separator tank in the same area was to be able to transfer heat from the hot separator tank to the cold gas tank, thereby attempting to alleviate the issues of the gas tank over cooling under heavy use. The first part of this set up entailed the manufacture of a copper heat transfer bridge which was actually made from a cut up piece of 2” diameter copper pipe and a copper electrical connecting strap from a heavy electrical plant switchboard. The unit was then lagged with refrigerant plant insulation to ensure the heat is directed through the strap and thereby deposit the heat into the gas tank. By doing this and supplying heat to the tank it is then important to ensure that the supplied gas pressure remains constant hence the fitting of a Cheddar manufacture pressure regulating valve. This should then smooth out any supply pressure fluctuations and keep the burner flame consistent. The valve was simply fitted into the line from the gas tank to the Cheddar Electronic Gas Valve.
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“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"
With the steam plant modifications completed it was time to return to the model and progress the area of the raised quarter deck. This was still bare ply and needed to go through the same entire process that had been completed on the main deck. The first job, was to sand down the P 38 filler in the bulwark faces to cover the fiberglass texture and give a nice smooth finish for the detail to be glued to. Next was to cover the deck with the heavy cartridge paper supplied with the kit after first cutting it into similar sized plates as the main deck and marking out the edges with flush rivets. When the glue was dry the edges around the deck openings were trimmed to fit.
The white metal butt straps were fitted next by simply gluing to the bulwarks and trimming back after the glue was set to the top of the bulwark with a pair of electrical side cutters. The kit supplied aluminium tube was fitted with suitable lengths of chain at either end, the ends bent to fit the curve of the deck and the tubes glued to the deck and bulwarks. Bulwark stays were made up exactly as they had been for the main deck and fitted in place followed by the pieces of plastic moulding angle iron at the foot and the top.
The next job was to work on the aft mooring winch unit which was designed to be a removable unit to give access to the rudder stock. The kit suggested a single transverse beam with the wooden slats glued to it cantilever style but I had doubts as to the strength of this arrangement. Consequently two transverse beams were used with the deck slats glued across the top of them both giving a much more rigid arrangement. The box section to fit the deck opening was made from ply scrap and a hatch cover was glued to the top of that with another piece of detailed cartridge paper glued to that. The white metal winch was assembled as per the instructions after treating the capstan to a quick spin in the lathe to dress it up into a perfect cylindrical shape and the whole unit sprayed with a grey primer before a couple of coats of semi gloss Tamiya Acrylic. The deck woodwork was varnished with two coats of satin yacht varnish after the ends were dressed up to be perfectly square to each other. A coat of the deck red paint was applied to the structure and a couple of pieces of the plastic moulding angle iron was added to the rear to neaten up the fit to the bulwarks. Cut outs in the forward main beam were added for the steering chain to pass through and a detail touch was to put a flange over the entrance made from a spare white metal porthole cut in two.
Other items completed at this time were the locating of the chain wheels and the securing of the chains in position taking care that the chains looked as though they run around the forward pulleys when in fact the removable wheelhouse is quite a separate piece.
Once I was happy with the fit of the mooring winch assembly it was time to address the capping rails. The tops of the bulwarks, bulwark stays, plastic angle iron and butt straps were all dressed up level with a large sanding flat surface and the curved capping rail was marked out from the hull by pencil and cut out of 0.8mm ply. This was glued to the bulwark top and the top of the stays.
The longitudinal sections were cut from 5mm x 1mm planking and the forward upturns made from a piece of aluminium tube cut to size and glued to the forward end over the bridge bulkhead guides. The capping rails were then all dressed up by sanding the tops and the edges and blending the different pieces where they joined. Finally the semi circular plastic extrusion was fitted to the outside edge of the capping rail after putting a sharp 90 degree bend at the forward end to match the curve of the aluminium tube.
Also at this point the mooring ports were fitted by first gluing the ring on the inside of the bulwark, drilling a hole through the hull then opening it out to almost meet the edge of the ring. The second ring was then glued on the outside before finally dressing up the inside surface with round files and emery cloth to smooth out the inside and outside ring with the bulwark. The internal grids of the wash ports were also fitted by dressing up and simply gluing to the inside face of the bulwarks.
The next job was to attend to the deck detail items with the bollards requiring the most work. The bollards supplied with the kit did not appear to match either the kit supplied plan or the other plans and drawing I had of the ship so I set about modifying them to the arrangement as shown in the picture. Two strips of 8mm wide wood, one 1mm thick and the other 2mm thick, were glued together and then rounded off to make the base riser. The while metal base was dressed up and the wooden riser glued to it. Next the base was drilled through to accept the pins on the cylinders and they were then glued to the risers, once again after a quick spin in the lathe to true them up. Finally more pieces of the 8mm x 1mm were drilled through with a 6mm drill, cut across the hole and then trimmed to size to make the gusset plates which were then glued in between the cylinders. A bit of a lengthy performance but the resulting bollards are considerably more true to the plan and after a coat of primer and a coat of Tamiya satin black look the part.
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“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"
There really are some stunning build threads going on at the moment. This one is always a pleasure to come back to when you get the time to work on her Bunk.
The attention to detail rivals the SE5A build. That steam plant is a wonderfull piece of engineering. The new improved bollards really do look the part now.
Any chance this will be finished for the Summer ?
That will give us two things to look forward to! Ben's maiden voyage and the SE5A test flights.
Tiger, many thanks for the kind words. Praise indeed to be even considered in the same breath as the amazing model that Grahame is putting together. I am completely in awe of the SE5A.
As for Summer I'm afraid completion is a long way off. I have been working on it steadily now during my leaves for four years and I reckon I have at least another two years to go, maybe a bit more.
I was looking at the large fibre glass moulding for the aft accomodation and the two boats and have come to the conclusion that I am going to have to make them myself from scratch. Once again then a job that is done for me is probably going to consume another couple of weeks of my spare time!!
Still, as the Missis says, "Keeps me out of the pub!"
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“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"
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