Part 8
I used the enamel paint to fill the joint lines where possible this took time to let the paint harden but gave me a lot of control over these small areas. In all likelihood Bassett Lowke used a very fine grind of enamel although they might also have used Lacquer, which is what we did at Allmodels when I was a young man in the early 60's we matched all our paints from the British Standard Colour charts. I cannot remember the actual name of the Standards now but we only used the primaries and black and white to make any colour we needed.
My plan was to do as little to disturb the original surfaces as possible, the colour oxidation was already apparent regarding the areas of the deck that were hidden from exposure when I removed the structures from the funnel deck. The white was the least problematic from my point of view. The most difficult was the side of the hull. I mixed some colour and let it dry. After some initial test samples to get close, and then used the damaged area to test them with very small spots of the Humbrol to see how well they blended.
The next picture shows the aft funnel structure and the area highlighted is where one of the tiny broken bits somehow avoided being swept up it is glued back on with carpenters glue. The vertical rectangular section was snapped completely in half and a section at the bottom was broken off as well.
The section highlighted on the collapsible lifeboat is one of the supports for the top boats and is the only pattern left, all the rest are missing from the port side boat deck, I managed to pull a small piece of similar Maple from my scrap maple drawer, so they will be easy enough to replace.
The tins I have seem to be OK after a while of remixing the pigment from its long rest on the bottom of the tins I use a piece of stainless steel that I salvaged from a wiper blade as the tool to remix. The straight end works to dig into the pigment to break it up and the folded end works like a sort of potato masher once the pigment is mobile.
The supports between the lifeboats that were stacked were all lost but one which was used as a pattern for a string of them. I needed to set up a small vice next in order to file them down to the final size. then I will separate them all.
Inspired by Gerald's machine tools for working on his Clyde model I did a small upgrade to this little holding fixture, I can see further modifications in the wings.
To facilitate sorting out the lifeboats, I decided to set them up in some small rectangles of homasote so that each was able to be handled as an independent model so that the davits and lines could be fixed while off the ship model.
The small bits of card are some test pieces of card painted for replacing the missing seats in some of the lifeboats. I had thought of using some strips of Evergreen initially but they would not be as the original which are card. The interesting thing is some of the loose pieces when flipped over one can see that the model makers back in the day that this model was made must have simply cut up some packaging.
Quite a few of the lifeboat Thwarts had sagged into a curve some quite a lot, the painted card was also quite brittle, when I attempted to flatten one of the loose seats the paint fractured. Now the dilemma was do I replace all the curved seats.
A couple of comments made at the time of the restoration helped my decisions at the time.
A difficult decision indeed on whether or not to replace the thwarts in the boats, Michael. As this is a restoration, I think I might be inclined to replace them - especially as you'll be using the same material. Of course, to be truly authentic, you'll have to find some of the same vintage packaging that the original model makers used! :)
John
I might suggest leaving at least one 'original' boat's thwarts for posterity? Perhaps there is one boat where the warpage is not objectionably severe? Also, you might want to see if the curvature can be flattened by dampening the underside of the card with a wet brush. If this works, consider sealing the underside so that the card does not change dimension with atmospheric humidity.
druxey
I made some strips and made as close a match as I could with the original colour to replace the worst of the thwarts.
The davits that sustained the most damage were in line with the aft funnel and got pretty twisted up. I noticed that the arms were stamped out of sheet so Bassett Lowke must have either jobbed out the stamping or made enough of these to have their own small punch press or fly press.
Even now after all the years that have passed I shudder every time I see this picture.
And one was missing, which meant replicating it.
to be continued
Michael
By
Michael ·
