5 days away...

We are just back from a very nice 5 days in deepest Essex.  We do this from time to time for a bit of "us" time. Sometimes a boat, this time a trip south to see some family and friends.

I have always been a sucker for the Estuary.  And Essex, my county of birth and childhood, has plenty of them.  We were staying near Tollesbury, in the most charming and tiny one bedroom cottage, which the even more charming owner allowed us the complete run of, because she had a small "lodge" half way down her garden, in which she spent the evenings and in which she slept.  So bed and breakfast became cottage and breakfast.
By going to the end of her lane to the crossroads and turning right, you go towards the lovely West Mersea, or by turning left, Heybridge Basin and Maldon.

Firstly, we turned right and went to West Mersea.  I have been to Mersea island many times and was delighted to find that The Blackwater Pearl cafe was still there, largely unchanged, so we parked up  and had a toasted teacake and a cuppa there, where the cleaner girl told us which of the two main establishments we should trust for fresh seafood.  As her Dad and brother were local oystermen, we figured she'd know.  Not that we wanted oysters, you understand.  If I wanted to swallow snot covered school rubbers and tabasco sauce I could do it much cheaper.  But a bit of dressed crab is always welcome and my good lady loves her cockles.

Later that day we had a look at Heybridge Basin, an old boaty haunt of mine since the days when I lived aboard a Victorian cutter at Burnham-on-Crouch.  It is less relentlessly boaty these days almost inevitably, but the Ship Inn and the Jolly Sailors are still there, so a pint was in order in the Ship.

 I was delighted to see two boats go through the sea lock from the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation, the first time I had ever seen the lock in use.

After our drink I strolled up on the sea wall for a gander and to my surprise a large ship came up the river from the sea.  It turned out to be a large tug, a small tug and a floating platform between them, which had been hired for the day for some operation at Clacton, up the coast.

It made an interesting counterpoint to the sailing barge which plies its trade in the trip game these days.

Old and new

Maldon is to the right of the above shots, but when we went there, we found no available parking place, so wended our way back to the "digs" via a very good Indian restaurant in Tolleshunt D'arcy.

And so the week progressed with visits to old friends, one of whom, my dear old pal Jimi, I hadn't seen in over 20 years as we'd always just missed each other.  Jimi is seriously affected by Cerebral Palsy, but whilst his speech and movement are difficult, his brain is sharp as a needle.  He has top qualifications in electronics design and a passion for the rock band, Hawkwind, which he combines when they tour to programme synths, design light shows and even sing backing!  When he sings, his speech is much clearer.  Anyway he was delighted to see us after all this time and we spent a wonderful couple of hours reliving old adventures.  Jimi was a regular on my boat Vanity when I lived the other end of town and we'd talk deep into the night.

We also went to North Fambridge, because I never have, despite living so close for long.  Well, there's not much there, but a couple of interesting old buildings, the distant one being my kind of hideaway.

I would LOVE to live here!

Or here!

On Thursday, we went to Maldon's Promenade Park to see what all the fuss was about.  Not easy to find, it is a delightful Edwardian park.  We stopped by the model boating pool to eat a cream cake, when I realised what was in this very unremarkable place, behind us in the car park, having a photo shoot done.

Now, come on, what were the odds of that?  A genuine Lamborghini Miura S, the only truly good looking Lambo.  Rare as rocking horse poo and worth, what...a quarter of a million or more?  In Maldon Park on a Thursday afternoon.

More anon.....

And now, even with paint...

The canal boat model got its cream two days ago and today, after well over an hour of masking with plastic tape used in the clay modelling game, pinched from VW years ago and finally found a use for, its blue.  The cream masking was then removed with success and we now have only the dark red to do at the rear and then tidying up, before clear coat.

Apologies for the typically shitty photos, but my camera will NOT take pics indoors and despite a bit of sun, the dogs will jump on the outside table if anything that smells different appears for their noses.

After all the painting shenanigans are done with and the clear coat goes on, the red oxide floors and rear roof can be done and the hull sides and bits of the bow will get matt black to simulate the black epoxide Bitumen that most narrow boats get these days.
More anon........

Nearly done, bar the paint.....

Back last year I was paid up front to make a model of a customer's friend's new narrow boat, an S.M.Hudson 60 footer.
It has had to be fitted around earners till my official retirement recently as it was too big a commitment in time to be otherwise.  In fact, I charged way too little for the amount of work it has proved to be.

No matter, tis nearly done.

In self etch primer.

The rivet work is impressed from behind in litho plate with a home made tool.  On the real boats these are entirely bogus dummy rivets made of welded on washers, an attempt to look like a "Josher", an old working boat run by Joshua Fellows.  Those of us who despise such follies call them "washer Joshers"!  But the damned things had to be on the model.

I am now out to spray its last coat of self-etch primer/surfacer to cover all the aluminium hinges I have added to the side doors.  I have also cut out the circles in which the brass portholes will fit.  This was done with a Compass Cutter set to minimum so the surface of the plywood was cut through to avoid splitting when the holes themselves were dug out with a small Rotafile in the minidrill.

That's one hobby gone!...

Today, I am just back from a long trip to Dunstable and back, delivering my Burlington Arrow project to its new owner.
With the sale of the Austin 7 Special almost instantly upon advertising it, that's my main hobby gone, thanks to the Landlady wanting me to get rid of my storage caravans from the back of the plot where they were barely even visible.

So what do I do now in my limited free time?
Well, there's still the model aircraft flying, but that rather depends on having a suitable model to learn to fly on.  The ready made trainer needs calm airs, of which we have had none all Summer and the more durable trainer still needs a set of wings to be finished. Clearly I won't have that airborne this side of Winter, despite the forecast of an Indian Summer.
As Winter does his deep approach I tend to go internal and take to the scenic modelling, till Spring is sprung, but I can assure myself of finishing the Super 60 trainer by then, in the hope I can start flying as soon as the Sun comes out again.

Meantime the shed needs Creosoting before the bad season and the weedkilling needs completing around it.

Since people seemed to like the shot of the Italian Job coach last time, here it is finished ready to go off for casting.  Biggest pattern I've ever done.  .................But, it seems the new computer hasn't kept the bloody photo, so you'll have to wait till I get the first resin casting back from Mr. Francis.  Thanks, Digitalia!

An hour at "The Field"

Every so often, on a nice day, I pop down to the local model flying field.  I'm not a member, but they don't care as I don't fly yet.
There's usually good banter and it was a nice afternoon.

The usual suspects were there, three of whom were flying.

One chap had a petrol engined (30 cc.) aerobatic type thing...huge wings, massive rudder, blah, blah, but the engine really wasn't pulling many revs.  However John flew it for the chap and it seemed to circulate at a nice speed to my way of thinking, but kept "dead sticking" before time, so got put away.
By contrast, another chap was already aloft with one of those Almost Ready To Fly jobbies, which many are sniffy about , but which get a lot of people flying quickly.  Both his aircraft had electric motors, something much more common these days and almost silent, which keeps the retards at the fishing lake happy, if anything actually does.

Then John got his own huge aerobatic thingy out of the car and started assembling wings on Carbon Fibre spars, connecting servo plugs, etc. etc.  It looked very like the petrol 'plane, except suddenly he just jumped up, turned the motor on and off it went.  By no means silent, but the bigger electric motors in these large models sound like well silenced engines.
He put it through the aerobatic schedule smoothly and efficiently and landed perfectly, with a nearly flat battery.   No mess, no wiping down old spent fuel, just turn off and disassemble.
There's a lot to be said for electric model aircraft, but I do like an on-song engine.

The big problem with modern electrics is the LiPo batteries, which aren't exactly cheap and can be very fussy, nay dangerous on charging, discharging and even storage.

But, I hope to be joining them soon so I can learn to fly again.  The only time I ever flew R/C was with a 2 function model microlight, which I bought for just 50 quid, because it had Skyleader radio gear.  Something I'd always wanted.  It was powered by an unthrottled PAW 19 diesel and screamed to full height before the engine cut and I was able to circle it down to a perfect tricycle landing...twice!  On the third attempt, covered in oily diesel fuel, my thumb slipped off the stick and it nosed in.  Later swapped for work on the front wing of my Jag XJ6!

Meanwhile back at the bench...

The master model of the Bedford VAL Legionaire coach in 1/32nd scale. It is, of course, the one in the original The Italian Job film which ended with its back end see-sawing over a cliff.  This made in Ureol and filler.  The basic shape is there, but windows need filling and detail added before it can be cast in resin.

Solvents, depression, etc....

A friend and fine modelmaking colleague, Iain Robinson has written a very important and interesting post on his superb blog about the link between solvents and depression, lethargy, loss of mojo, etc.

It's officially known as neurotoxicology and is a fact.  of course how it may affect different individuals changes from person to person, but the number of complaints of the above symptoms I see on forums must be a little more than simple burnout.

Please read all Iain's latest post AND the very interesting and informative comments to the post on :-
http://iainrobinsonmodels.blogspot.co.uk/

I think you may be alarmed and surprised.

I think, fortunately that I have got away with it so far, though my periodic depressions may well have coincided with a larger than normal exposure to solvents.  If I had half a memory I could maybe make the correlation.

A change is as good as a rest...

Recently, a feeling of stagnation has caused me to go back to something I'd tried before to do.  Radio Controlled model aircraft.  Of course work always got in the way and so recently I find that a model I have done some work on appeared in a forum I was on 3 years ago!

An old chum in the village, who I first met around that time, gave me an ancient KeilKraft Super  60 trainer which he'd crashed.  Most people would have made a small bonfire of it, but no, 40 years ago he simply put it away.  He also gave me another, which he'd never finished.  The former needed some repairs, but then I found that in repairing it in less than ideal conditions it had bent like a banana, so needs re-repairing.  The unfinished one is glued with Secotine or some such old glue which has embrittled and so I have laboriously reglued every stick.  In the process I thought why not make it into a low winger ready for that intermediate level of trainer, so that was done simply by replacing the same wing under the cabin instead of above it.

Said chum then presented me with a 50 year old plan and suggested it would be quicker if I just made a new one, so I cleared a space on the flattest table I have in the shed and stripped some 1/4" balsa sheet into 1/4" square strip and cut it to fit over the plan, suitably covered in cling film of course for protection. In fact it took no longer to make the whole fuselage side than to unravel and flatten the damned cling film!
So now I have the makings of not one, but 3 of these venerable old kites to play with.

In the mean time I was also given by said chum a modern ready made balsa "stick" plane with ailerons and a geared electric motor. The gearbox had a bent shaft and anyway my friend said it would be unsuitable as a trainer.  However a visit to my local model flying field recently saw me watching a plane so easy to fly that I couldn't see why I wouldn't be able to fly my one as it was so similar.  I was given some brushless electric motors and speed controllers a while back in exchange for a small diesel engine, a Frog 100 and it seemed that one of the motors would easily fly this aircraft and all I would need would be a prop and a new LiPo battery.  ALSO, last year my son gave me two of the modern pod and boom type powered glider type of trainer, with electric motors and built in R/C gear.  I did try to fly one last Summer, but succeeded only in dislodging a slate from the roof.  However, with a slight repair to the somewhat unusual method of actuating the tail surfaces, it would fly again, no problem, but this time I'll take it to a flying field to try.

All this time, the Skystreak 32 was taking shape.  A model based on the smaller Skystreak 26, a conrol line stunter from 50 odd years ago, for which a kind chap had sent me plans.  When I was about 8 years old, my Uncle gave me an original Skystreak 26, he'd built with an ED Bee diesel up front. He'd doped it in silver and black and it lived on the top of my wardrobe for years.  I could never get the engine started and my Mum probably sat on it as she did most of my model aeroplanes!

But the shape never left me.  To this day I don't think there's a nicer looking 'plane.

Here are a pair of 32s, one glow engined, one electric.

And the same brushless motor I had lined up for the "ugly stick" trainer will fly one of these.

So, from a wish to build a trainer to get into model flying, I seem to have gained a surfeit of airframes!

But a man needs a plan, lest his brain empties.  I also have the Specials to build, but they demand a bigger commitment to time than just gluing some balsa together, while glue sets on a paying job and provide a very different kind of mental abstraction, when needed.