Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i Model Boats

The Sea Urchin was my first proper plywood model boat build, at around 12 years of years of age, so if I tell you I’ll be celebrating my 68th birthday this year you can see I’ve been doing this for a while, with some intermissions for work, marriage, daughters and grandchildren. Some folks say they gave up an interest to do the aforementioned, but not me, I kept building throughout my working life and into retirement after 51 years in the construction industry. The original 16-inch-long version of Sea Urchin, designed by Les Rowell, was the smallest and cheapest in Aerokits’ range of model boats, which were distributed by Keil Kraft back in the days when every town had a model shop and young lads saved their pocket money until…

Flotsam & Jetsam Not since Noah and his ark has a builder and his vessel been so closely associated as William Francis Gibbs and the SS United States liner. Considered America’s foremost naval architect, Gibbs put 40 years of experience into his vision of what an ocean liner should be. When he finally got to realise that vision in the mid-20th century, it was hailed as beautiful, nation-building, safe – and fast. It easily took the Blue Riband from the Queen Mary on its maiden voyage, and even that didn’t reveal its true speed potential. Despite all this, its service life was brief, cut short by jet aircraft that were already tentatively spreading their wings across the North Atlantic. “Gibbs put 40 years of experience into his vision of what…

Memory Lane When I first began writing on vintage topics for Model Boats, well over 25 years ago now, after doing a couple of years on a sister publication Radio Controlled Boat Modeller, the history of radio-control electronics and of model marine power were my main themes, and, if my postbag was anything to judge by, very popular themes they were too. I was especially interested in what I called (back then) ‘The Great Little Engines of Kent’ and I was, together with a friend, at that time rebuilding a number of Taplin-Twin marine diesels. This successful enterprise led on naturally to us doing the same with this engine’s main competitor during the 1960s – the overhead valve GANnet petrol engine. Let’s start by looking briefly back at these two…

Letters can either be forwarded via email to editor@modelboats.co.uk or via post to Readers’ Letters, Mortons Media Group, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6JR Plant points The February 2023 instalment of Boiler Room focusing on the new Econo Plant was very interesting, showing a neat and apparently well engineered package with the boiler burner assembly being an integral part of the boiler base, thus allowing a very compact overall arrangement. I would, however, offer a few comments… With a small boiler, such as this, one is always struggling to conserve heat so lagging the boiler and the steam pipe would be a practical as well a visual improvement. There is also an issue to consider with these vertical cross tube boilers – the effective heating area depends to…

Signals PRIZE DRAW WINNERS The January 2023 issue of Model Boats featured two fantastic prize draws and we are now delighted to announce the winners as: ● Purelite 4-in-1 Prize Draw. Martin Richards of Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan ● Billing Boats’ Will Everard Prize Draw. Michael Curling of Tonbridge, Kent ● Congratulations to you both Exclusive Jecobin plans discount Peedie Models is offering readers of this magazine a 10% discount all on the Jecobin Collection plans available to purchase via its Quaycraft.uk website. All you have to do is use the exclusive discount code MBM10 when placing your order. While visiting the site, we also recommend browsing all the other newly listed products, just three of which are illustrated here. BUY THE BOOK Elizabeth’s Navy: Seventy Years of the Postwar…

Make it personal In the March issue we began to look at how to take a Ready-To-Run model and enhance it by adding significantly more detail and some gentle weathering effects, using my own Graupner Premium Line Corvette modifications as an example. Having last month completed the removeable bridge section, this month we shall be moving on to the aft superstructure section, the main deck area and the external hull to deal with, all of which were tackled separately, and concluding this, hopefully, helpful two-parter. Aft superstructure The aft superstructure section comprises the accommodation, gun platforms, funnel and boats, all in one piece. The first job was to undertake a similar weathering process to that used on the bridge, and that involved an overall dark wash, removed with a dampened…

Steam Basics Pt. 139 The December 2014 instalment of Boiler Room focused on heat shunts and their usage. That, of course, was a very long time ago now. Consequently, when I came across the need for such a thing recently, I thought it might be interesting to revisit the subject and share a ‘real world’ example of just what a heat shunt can do and how one can be created. We’ve discussed many times over the years the challenge of the gas in our gas tanks cooling down as it evaporates, thereby slowing down evaporation rates, and, of course, the options open to us when trying to reduce this effect – one possibility being to try and replace the heat that’s lost through evaporation. I’ve seen numerous ideas employed over…

Hull of a build The classroom wall was covered in pinned up newspaper cuttings, barely recognisable kids’ paintings, and short, very short, compositions. It was 1952 and several hundred miles away, a drama was unfolding… Having left Hamburg a few days earlier bound for New York, the 6,711-ton cargo ship Flying Enterprise was listing badly off the coast of Cornwall in heavy seas after a rogue wave had caused serious structural damage. The cargo the ship carried was made up of a wide variety of products, including pig iron, coffee, rags, Volkswagen cars and antique musical instruments, but it was the gold and zirconium also in the hold that apparently created the most interest; the latter intended for use on the first nuclear submarine. Help was at hand. A number…

Angle of attack “Yes, 20 degrees may seem a little excessive, but…” I was once complimented on just how fast my model of a wartime cruiser could travel, despite having what the gentleman making the remark thought was a small motor of modest power. This surprised me at first since nothing I’d done seemed to be out of the ordinary. The model’s motor and propeller shafts were aligned and connected by a free moving coupling; the propeller shaft’s tube was filled with oil – having learnt the hard way that stiff grease is a performance killer; and a few minutes experimenting in the first sailing trials had found the best propeller for this motor/model combination. A little later and I discovered that not everyone takes this approach – some rectifying…

Sunshine Coast fleet I am a member of the Sunshine Coast Model Boat Club Inc. (SCMBC), and we meet every Sunday morning between 8am-12pm. Although warships are not my preferred subject of choice (with the likes of schooners and square riggers considered more pleasing to the eye and satisfying to sail), having spent 20 years of my career in the Royal Australian Navy I’ve modelled four of the ships on which I served, and a fifth to accompany my final warship. HMAS Derwent – a working model, converted for static display (see Photo 1), HMAS Duchess – a static model (see Photo 2) and HMAS Hobart – a working model (see Photo 3) have all been built to 1:64 scale, while HMAS Tobruk – a working model (see Photo 4)…