RRS Discovery 1/144

[NigelR]

Good to see some progress on this one Alan, it's looking good and will be impressive on that base. I think those railings look pretty good, I'm sure stretched sprue would be an easy way to repair those small twisted sections.

[Dirigible-Al]

Cheers Nigel

More of them have warped today. I did the heat treatment again but now wonder if this will be an on going thing so if it happens again I will strip the whole lot off and do it again with stretched sprue.

I worked on the lifeboats today. I had painted them up as Airfix instructed but just before I was about to put a final coat on the seats I realised a howling omission, and one that has sadly got me before. Lifeboats have covers on them which are held up by a frame. It is of course obvious why ships have their lifeboats covered, where else would stowaways hide? There are seven boats two of which are sail boats and five lifeboats. Oddly Airfix have given the oar driven lifeboats rudders but left them off the sail boats, I would have thought it would be the other way round. I cannot see anything in the archive pictures to contradict this and besides I don't think they will be seen anyway. I put a piece of copper wire in the length of each lifeboat and a fatter piece of wood in the two sail boats as they would have been the masts. This was filled with clay and shaped. I am not sure if you can see it on the picture but I painted shadows where the frame parts would be. The canvas cover comes over the side so to give it an edge I ran masking tape along it and brush painted over. The slight raise the paint has given probably isn't far off the scale thickness of the canvas anyway. Copper wire twisted round a drill bit then cut off formed the ropes that hang down the sides of the lifeboats. I am at a loss as to how they were attached to the frames, my guess is they were just lashed to them with rope. The other Airfix Discoverys I have seen built have just glued them on but if I find no evidence between now and when they go on I will just wrap some cotton round them to simulate rope.

Thanks for looking in, Alan.

PS: First two images attached are archive pictures of lifeboats on other vessels but clearly show how lifeboats appeared in that era.

[Dirigible-Al]

Last ones.

[NigelR]

The covers look great, nice work Alan and excellent research as well! It sounds like those railings are going to be a pain. Maybe keep the model in a temperature controlled UV free environment? Might be challenging when you want to display it on the SIG table though....

[DaddyO]

Good to see this one progressing so well Alan. As Nigel says nice to see a bit of research about the lifeboats and the new covers rather than the easy option of just following the kit instructions (and, as you say, it gives a place for the stowaways; although I'll bet any of those would be in for quite the unpleasant surprise when they found out the destination . . .)

Interesting to see you had an issue with the railings using monofilament (which looks great by the way) Our Sceptered Isle being blessed with quite the range of climates (often in the same day) it's perhaps something to be aware of. Not sure of the thickness mono you're using, but perhaps fine wire is a possibility. I've had success recently using stripped electrical wires (computer wire yields some very fine stuff) and jewellery wire which comes in different gauges and is nice and malleable when annealed with a lighter flame.

Paul

[Dirigible-Al]

Hello Paul and Nigel, I will not keep it in any protected environment, with aircraft I accept that occasionally you will get one or two naughty ones but with the much thinner mono used it is no problem correcting it. It's the thickness of the mono that's the problem, it cannot be corrected as easily and seems to buckle incessantly. In future, for ships, I will use wire or stretched sprue. The irony is I definitely would have used wire if I had a decent flat pair of snippers that can cut to the posts. I will have to invest in a pair.

Just a snapshot of the boats in place but not properly attached.

Cheers, Alan.

[NigelR]

It was worth doing the covers on the boats - it would be pretty obvious they were missing......