Deans Marine
General Discussion => Customers Builds => Topic started by: karlgalster on 16 December 2017, 17:30:32
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Hi guys, its been a long time, well it seems a long time, since I attempted to do a build log. Anyway the subject is Dean Marine's yacht Melita. It looks good and is being built as a potential replacement for the wife's current steering regatta boat, a Model Slipway Conserver. Our Conserver still functions well but although ultra manoeuvrable going forwards it does not steer well astern and in any sort of breeze going astern is a nightmare >:D, The Conserver is also getting a bit shabby having being built by yours truly about 14 years ago. The Melita has two prop shafts and two rudders. It should therefore have no trouble going astern in a controllable manner. it also has quite a low profile (as opposed to the Conserver) so the adverse effects of breezes should be less. As belts and braces it will also have a mixer from Action. I have experienced these mixers and they work well. I will be posting my first offering shortly. Robin
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This is an image from another forum showing the completed model. The kit has a very nice glass fibre hull and an interesting moulded cabin in two parts. There is the usual full building instructions but it will help if you have built some DM kits before.
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The following is historical as the kit work was started in November. The hull bulwark top has been sanded to the line and the insides of the bulwarks filled with P38 and rubbed down smooth. The prop shafts and rudder tubes have been bonded in with Stabilit Express two part epoxy and subsequently reinforced with fibre glass tissue and David's epoxy.
I have replaced the kit's white metal rudders and rudder arms with scratch built alternatives. The two motors are MFA Como Drills Torpedo 400s which I bought cheap at the Chantry Club open day in July at Bluewater (hopefully they will be adequate but if not replacement is possible). I am using a favourite DM method of motor mounting. Wood wedges on a wooden base with very small curtain hooks to hold the rubber bands which hold the motors down. Not perhaps for the purists but for low power drives it works well. The grey panel is a 1/8th inch plywood panel which will hold all the electronic items. Beneath is a box/panel support for holding the batteries. I am using two 7.2 volt NmHi 2500 mA hour batteries in parallel which will give a good endurance plus good low down ballast.
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The batteries are installed underneath the control panel.
Moving on to the electrical components. I have used Action modules. A P103 battery paralleling board, a P92 Power distribution board including a BEC, a P94 combined mixer/dual ESCs. I bought the self build versions as I find that enjoyable to do and so far it has always worked ^^^
Items installed on the control panel together with a charge/run switch, charging Tamiya sockets for the two batteries and on/off switches for the lights and radar motor. The keen eyed of you (I am assuming there is somebody out there) will notice the Radiolink 2.4Ghz receiver.
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Now for the deck. The deck is supported around the hull side with 1/4inch x 1/4inch balsa strips. Across the hull and around the access hatch areas 1/4inch x 14inch spruce strip was used. Not in the kit but the wood provided was a bit on the curvy side. All bonded in with Stabilit Express and wood glue. I used the kit's 1.5 mm material for the deck itself but rather than cut to the printed line I used a cardboard template to get the exact shape. The deck was bonded to the hull using DevCon 2ton epoxy which seems to work better than the Stabilit Express for styrene to wood bonding.
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I am not sure this build log is of much interest to the forum but I shall continue anyway ::DD
Next job is to plank the deck. The kit is supplied with a printed yinyl simulated decking but I prefer to plank with wood. The hatch combings were fitted after the decking was complete as it is easier to do the planking with them not in place. My method is to use superglue. The advantage of this is that each plank can be fitted in a few seconds and adjacent planks can be fitted immediately. The down side is you get superglue on your fingers so don't press the planks too long :-[. Anyway it works for me and so far with models planked using this method I have had no problems. The start is to do a margin plank round the deck edge. Ideally these should be curved to match the deck edge shape on both sides but too much trouble - my planks are shaped to match the bulwark curve on one edge and straight the other edge. Length adjusted to suit. I used 10mm lime 0.5 mm thickness for the margin planks. The main planks are maple 5mm 0,5mm thickness. I had the lime left over from another model and could not find 5mm 0.5mm lime anywhere.
A king plank was stuck down the centre line and I worked outwards from there progressing from bow to stern. Not that easy retaining trueness to the centre line as I worked towards the stern but as you progress it does pay to check alignment occasionally. A simulation of caulking has been done using a 5B pencil down one side of each plank and one end as they are stuck. I worked on a plank length of 200mm and used the staggered planking with the pattern repeated every 5 lines of planks. The deck has been finished by sanding down lightly (mainly to removed residual superglue mixed with stray pencil carbon). Three coast of sanding sealer and she is ready for varnishing later on.
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Hi Keep up the good work, she is looking a very nice model, look forward to seeing he on the water
Happy New Year
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but of course this build is of interest Robin..
just not much time for comments.. :) ;D
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Yes second that! Really nice work on the deck. I also found thick super glue is the best for sticking the planks to plastic.
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Thanks guys for the comments and yes the thick superglue is what I use too. Next job up is the cabin. A pre-moulded cabin which is new for me. I was tempted to scratch build it but the shape is complex with hardly a straight edge anywhere so the moulded cabin it shall be. Nappy New Year to all.
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A bit more progress. The moulded cabin comes in two parts. Quite difficult to mate the two sections. To make the join strong the kit has some plastic parts to be bonded on the inside of the mouldings both sides. I used a combination of Poly weld and Deluxe Super Crylic for this joint. The later adhesive gives a stronger join. Quite expensive but it grabs very quickly so as long as you do just small sections at a time and swiftly remove excess glue it works well. Goes off in about 90 seconds. NB I also tried super glue but it was useless. I love plastic magic but the mouldings are not styrene (abs). I suppose DM have their reasons for not using clear styrene for the cabin mouldings but the white styrene parts of the kit need special glue to fix them to the cabin. Two photos. It looks a mess but it will be alright on the night ::DD The scored mark on the cabin roof is a mistake on my part. I mistakenly thought that part needed to be cut out along with several other parts but fortunately I realised my error before I cut through. As luck would have it the cut may show up but the yacht's boat sits on it anyway covering it up :smiley1:
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With respect to the previous posting photos the "U" shaped joining plates are designed to avoid the windows. DM strategy with this kit is to avoid glazing the cabin windows. The clever plan is to use the clear moulding material as the glazing. More on this subject later.
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More progress on the cabin. I decided to line the aft deck and bulkhead with styrene sheet in order to get a sharp edge across the rear cabin roof/cabin wall and to plank the aft cabin deck instead of using the self adhesive oak effect material. There might be an issue around the edge of the planking but that will be reviewed once the cabin is primed.
There was a need for a bulkhead within the cabin behind the wheelhouse to add to the cabin's rigidity. I found it very difficult to bond the styrene bulkhead to the cabin with the Super Acrylic as the glue grab time is short but not short enough when trying to hold the bulkhead in place in a wobbly cabin by hand. Plan B was to clad the inside of the cabin with 0.5 mm styrene strip where the bulkhead needed to be bonded to go to act as a foundation for the styrene bulkhead. I find the liquid poly will grab very quickly and the bulkhead can be held in place by hand. The plan worked anyway.
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Wheel house windows. After some thought I decided not to use the kit's templates and transparent plastic material for the wheelhouse windows. Instead I will scratch build the windows from 1mm styrene sheet using the kit templates as a guide. First step was to get a suitable foundation around the edge of the moulded wheelhouse. This has been done by bonding 0.75mm x 4mm styrene strip around the edge of the wheelhouse using the Super Crylic.
Two drawbacks resulting from departing from the kit method is that I will need to glaze the windows conventionally and the window frames will need to be hand crafted rather than using the kit's vinyl versions. Personal choice.
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Hi Robin,
when I need an instant bond of styrene, I use medium super glue, hold the parts in place, and then apply activator spray. The bond sets within a few seconds then.
Keep up the good work!
Regards
Arno
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Hi Arno
Good idea. I have tried that technique in the past ^^^
Actually I have slightly changed my view of the kit's Styrolux cabin moulding when bonding to styrene. My early attempts were using Humbrol liquid poly to join styrene to untreated styrolux. It worked reasonably with large areas but not a very secure bond. However,if the styrolux target surface is roughed up with sand paper prior to bonding the Humbrol liquid poly works well but for small areas I think the Deluxe Super Crylic is the best solution.
Robin
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Hi. Moving on, the wheel house windows were cut from 0.75mm styrene sheet. I used the kit's vinyl window templates as a general guide but careful measurements of the actual wheel house window base bonded to the cabin were made along with measurements from the kit drawing. Needless to say the wheelhouse roof has had to be scratch built as the moulded kit version will not fit the top of the wheel house as produced by my frames :( The tabernacles for the mast are bonded to the cabin with a supporting strip underneath to add to the mast support rigidity.
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Time to prime the cabin and hull. The cabin only required the aft planked area to be masked, The hull needed everything above the mahogany bulwark capping to be masked although the inside of the bulwark were also primed. I am using Simoniz white primer. The white does not cover that well particularly where I have used Humbrol modeller's filler which is mid grey. Should have used a white filler I suppose - try and remember that next time I have a white painted model. Various views follow of the cabin before and after priming and the underside of the hull. I primed inside the cabin as well remembering to mask off the windows. Followed up with air brushing Humbrol 22 gloss white enamel. Sprays quite well but again the covering is not that brilliant. Could have used an acrylic car spray...
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The Melita will have a rotating radar and five leds. Two leds will be for the navigation lights, one led for the search light and two leds for lighting the interior of the cabin and wheelhouse for night regattas -my club does the occasional night regatta/barbeque in the summer ..... the lake/pond looks quite impressive I'm told. Melita will be my first model fitted with any illuminations. I will post some photos of the leds mounts and radar later but in the meantime below is a photo of the small board for fitting inside the cabin. It uses part of an old "Vero Board" which was used in days of old for building up circuit prototypes in labs etc. On my board is the small (very small) adjustable voltage regulator for the miniature radar motor. The motor will be fixed to the underside of the wheelhouse roof. I got the motor and regulator from Componentshop.com at the Warwick show last November. To give a realistic rotational speed the motor will not need much more than 1 volt dc. The regulator will provide this from my 7.2 volt battery. Could have just used a series resistor but better this way. The led series resistors are 1/4 watt. More on this later. The two leads and connectors mate up with the main control board which has switches for selecting lights and or radar. The leads will be long enough to enable the cabin to be removed without unplugging.
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I have been building the wheelhouse interior. The plan was to glue this from underneath into the appropriate orifice in the cabin. However it has been possible to fix the wheelhouse interior in place (firmly) with just a single clip and some wooden strips. This will enable me to maintain the underside of the wheelhouse roof which mounts some leds and the radar motor.
The wheelhouse interior is from sheet styrene.
I have added some navigation aids which I have added reference being a set of photos included in the information when the yacht was up for sale in Bergen - just google yacht melita if you are interested.
The chart is reproduced from a photo of an OS map, in this instance Outdoor Leisure 36 South Pembrokeshire which is the closest I have of a maritime chart. I attached the jpg file to a word document and then reduced its size to what I wanted. The result was printed on Letraset Safmat which is a self-adhesive A4 material which can be printed on a standard inkjet printer. Cut out and stuck on the chart table.
Next task is to paint the hull and cabin in gloss white and two shades of blue.
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Nice detailing of the interior of the cabin. Should look awesome when lite up by the lighting. ^^^
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Hi Dennis
I think led lighting will enhance the model but I suspect the cabin itself will glow at night as well since it is made of clear plastic painted white. Not sure what I will do about this except paint the cabin interior matt black but that might have an adverse effect on the model in daylight.
I am also in the process of remaking my search light as it was also made of plastic and when switched on the whole thing lit up not just light from the front. I am lining search light mkII with a cylinder of litho plate (0.15mm aluminium sheet) to block out unwanted light. Hoping it works :smiley1:
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Hi Robin,
the aluminium method should work - I have used aluminium foil and nothing shone through later. Matt black paint usually is unsufficient especially when applied with a brush (at least when I do it ;D).
Cheers
Arno
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Yes, perhaps the matt black was wishful thinking on my part. Plan B will be to try and stick a disc of the aluminium on the flat end of the led before inserting the led into the tube (being careful to not to short the led's two legs together ::DD)
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Most of the painting done. I use an air brush for practically everything apart from priming. I could do with a more heavyweight brush for the hull work but with a lot of work my neo for iwata TRN2 is just about OK. It has a nice pistol grip which I like.
The paints are Humbrol gloss enamels.
The next jobs are the railings and the glazing of the wheelhouse windows and making the wheelhouse roof.
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Moving on. Wheelhouse is now glazed and the wheelhouse roof made and bonded in place. I used Deluxe Glue 'n' Glaze for both the glazing and attaching the roof to avoid fogging the clear styrene glazing material. Seems a good all purpose glue as well as specialist glazing uses.
Railings. Quite a long job. The kit supplies white metal stanchions complete with holes for threading the kit supplied brass wire for the railings. The stanchions are supposed to be fitted to the wooden bulwark capping.
I have departed from this plan. In the actual yacht the stanchions actually are fitted to the deck not the top of the bulwarks. I also do not like white metal in general. Ok for a static model but with me being a bit clumsy I would probably break the stanchions on the first strip to the lake. :'(
My stanchions are from 1.5 mm thin walled brass tube. A slightly larger diameter short brass sleeve is soldered to the deck end to get the height above deck level the same for each stanchion. Half way up each stanchion a 0.5 mm diameter hole is drilled so that the 0.33 mm dia nickel silver rod can be threaded through. The top rail is a 1.5 mm solid brass rod. The railings are in four sections. The sections were soldered using the model as the jig. Worked out OK and nice and strong.
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Finished. Sails well, looks good on the water. The other half is now using it for steering regattas, her old faithful Conserver (Model Slipways) is now in retirement. Overall a typical DM kit. Nice subject but can be challenging for novices.
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Couple of on the water shots.