Frostbite Sail 2012

Though the weather was dull and wet on the day the turn out for the frostbite day was the best we have had for a number of years.

Bob and Joyce waving there!, good crowd too.

The drizzle doesn't put off these members!.

Andy the Secretary on top of the job handing out next years members badges!.

New members rep George there with his wife, back in the reins again 

One of the boats on the water

This is not a reflection of the day, its just that the call "Soups ready" saw a mass exodus to the clubhouse where there was a lot more members in out of the rain!. The buffet was laid out by that stalwart of the club Mike the social  rep, who had done his usual great job of providing the buffet, not forgetting the ladies for their help in the kitchen, it is always nice to see the ladies at these events!.

Sorry there was not many pictures of the event but my camera was getting wet and by the time I got to the clubhouse the wonderful smell of the hot soup wiped the thought's of pictures from my mind.

All in all another great event to end the club's fixtures for the year, I know you will want to join me in thanking the Committee members and their helpers for their efforts over the past year,

 "Well done you guys".

Check out the Diary for next year's events in the tab's at the top, not all in yet but will give you something to look forward to in the new year, keep checking as more dates and events added though the year!.

Happy New Year to you all

Merry Christmas!.

Merry Christmas to all our readers!.

And a Happy Frostbite sail

(27th december 2012)

From Duckie and Ruddy

All the best to you and yours!.

Waiting for Christmas.

Hi there all, hope you have got all your Christmas shopping done and survived the rush and crush at the shop's.

I personally started my Christmas treats by taking my two beautiful grand-daughters to a nice lunch at the Hartshead Pub in the hills above Ashton and very nice it was too, though I must say I'd rather have it in the Summer sat outside in the sunshine overlooking the Cheshire plains as far away as the  Joddrell Bank telescope.

That's not forgetting the great Christmas dinner the Club had at the Hare and Hounds of course, another success that was.

On the model boat scene, that's what this site is all about of course, have you read the article in Model boats magazine by our club member Bob Abell, I know he has supplied me with a few articles in the past ,but this one is well worth a read over the Christmas holidays, what a great advert for our club!.

Click here!.  

My Eureka Moment to-day is "Shackles" made from dress fasteners.

First you have to bite the bullet and go to an Haberdashery shop and buy the dress fasteners, if you get funny looks assuring them they are for a model boat!!. 

Take one out as you can see on the left packet and turn the ends 90%

a couple of panel pins for screws

and there you have them!.

They come in all sizes for your boat scale and as you can see even this close I think they look al-right, that Clump off my Trawler "Our Lass 11" will be tidied up before painting by the way.

This was an idea I found in one of the Model Boat Magazines years ago by the way not my idea, but used it to good effect since, so if you are a new member and you've not seen it yourself that's a bonus isn't it.

Beautiful (Model) warship for sale in the "For Sale" section to-day!

 Click here

That's all for now folks, see you at the Frostbite sail on the 27th ???

OR 

Will it be true what the Mayan's say and the world will end to-day 21-12 2012, what time will that be??.

Well that's another AGM come and gone.

It was a lively one with the main discussion over the treasurers report ie lifeboat day expenditure, the committee will be looking into this before the next event.

The layout of Awards and Raffle prizes

I'm sure everyone will agree that Mike as done a great job over the past year with coach trips and catering    and all this whilst waiting to go into hospital!.

The raffle was another success with plenty of prizes, one of which I won myself, that nice blue tin of biscuits.

The results of the awards over the year are as follows

Check out the tabs at the top for pictures of the award winners

So that's it for another great year for the club not forgetting the frostbite sail on the 27th December.

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AGM 2012

Don't forget its the AGM on the 12th December, 

Committee reports, prize giving, raffles and good company, what more could you ask for!

Why don't you bring your money with you for next years sub's, Geoff the treasurer will be in attendance and will be glad to receive your money, save on postage for yourself and the club!, same price as last year, which in this present climate can't be bad.

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Another Eureka moment for you, compliments of Bob Abell and myself!.

Rudder for the PS Glasgow

This plastic moulding, needs to be glued together, edge on and the material is only about 0.012" thick

Not easy

Duckie came up with a super Eureka Moment!........Glue a flat sheet to the edge of one half first, trim round, then glue the other half on!

Brilliant!.....And it`s much stronger too!

And here's one I did earlier.

Hope you like these Eureka moments, for more check out the tags at the top, if you have any why not drop me an e-mail!.

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At the national Agricultural Conference it was easy to pick out the dairy milking champion. he was the one who shook hands with everyone ,one finger at a time.

Boom Boom 

That's all for to-day folks

Club Christmas dinner 2012

The Club Christmas dinner was another of this years successes, there were only 21 of us but everyone had a good time and ate everything put before them.

Another big thank you to our Social Sec Mike from all who were there I'm sure.

 I  forgot my camera (was in my other jacket) but remembered I had my Iphone so all was not lost, pictures not too good but the lighting was a bit dim, perhaps on purpose so you couldn't see what you were eating, still shouldn't say that has it was all very nice and Pepe liked his doggie bag!.

Though the pix's are not too good you get the general idea of the Christmas spirit I'm sure.

Pepe getting in the Christmas mood as well!, loved the Hare and Hounds turkey.

Don't forget its the AGM on the 12th December, Committee reports, prize giving, raffles and good company, what more could you ask for!

Why don't you bring your money with you for next years sub's, Geoff the treasurer will be in attendance and will be glad to receive your money, save on postage for yourself and the club!, same price as last year, which in this present climate can't be bad.

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If I don't see you before Christmas, have a good one and a happy new year.

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When everything's coming your way, your in the wrong lane!.

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

I tried sniffing Coke once but the ice cubes got stuck in my nose.

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That 's all for now folks.

Auction Night

The auction night last night at the club was a huge success with Eddie Outen running the auction himself, and very funny he was at times!.

There were lots of bargains and I picked up a couple of steel drawer units, contents unknown, there again the contents were a bargain in themselves as I wanted the drawers for my workroom.

I was pleasantly surprised this morning on investigation to find the drawers full of all sorts of nuts, bolts and screws which will come in handy over the coming months, if not for me I'm sure son John will find a use for some.

Here are my bargains, £2 for one and £3 the other, (the nails at the bottom of the picture must cost you about £2 at B&Q mustn't they?,) and as you can see they just fit under the shelves.

The other good news was the treasurer announced that the auction had raised £464!! for club funds, that's great with a lot of items going for £1 or £2!.

So I'm sure you will join me in thanking Eddie for this generous gift to the club.

There were also a couple of new members signed up on the night, so a good Etherow welcome to them. 

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Did you hear of the club that was looking for a treasurer, someone said "why are you looking for a treasurer, what happened to the other one" that's the one we are looking for they said.

 Boom Boom!.

That's all folks.

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Model boat on unmanned Atlantic crossing challenge

As I'm always looking for items for the website Son John thought this one would be good for you all!.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-20516205

A toy boat is to attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

A retired NATO scientist will this week set the boat off on the voyage, which he hopes will be the first unmanned trip across the Atlantic.

Robin Lovelock has spent four years developing the miniature vessel, which he believes can survive the 6,000 mile journey.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the Snoopy Sloop is only 4ft long, weighs just 30lbs and is held together in parts by bathroom light cord.

65-year-old Lovelock built the boat in the games room of his house in Sunninghill, Berkshire.

He made the whole thing from off-the-shelf parts scoured from the internet at a cost of less than £450 ($720).

Lovelock said: "I got hooked about four years ago, I didn't even play with model boats when I was a boy. I sometimes tinker on the boat in the lounge, but am usually banished to the games room by my wife."

Lovelock and his team are hoping that wind power and a solar-powered computer and GPS system will navigate the boat all the way to the finish line. 

Watch some footage of the Snoopy Sloop below:

Anyone else fancy a try if this attempt fails?, but seriously this guy will hopefully succeed, he's certainly put in a lot of time and effort and that "Jack" on the mast will look great coming in to land in the good old US of A won't it!.

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Another Eureka moment for you 

From John Teal.

This first picture suggests the madness of glazing before spray painting, but its actually the product of a Eureka moment. Glazing that slots in without gluing, hence it can be removed.

From inside you can see the clear plastic and the inner frame can be slid up and out from 

a pocket constructed behind the wheel house wall.

When the glazing is slid out , cardboard can be slid in, providing the perfect mask
to allow the inside and outside of the wheel house to be sprayed different colours.

The end result showing the inner frame independently sprayed silver and slotted into the wheel house with the glazing behind it. No glue marks on what are big windows... Eureka !

Thanks for that John!.

This is part of a new series of Eureka Moments that can be found 

on the tab up at the top, or by clicking Here

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Hope you enjoyed to-day's post, don't forget its the Club auction to-night as well.

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Ken's Lifeboats

Had these pictures for a while waiting for a lull on the site and to-day thought it would be the right time to show them to you!.
First there is the Tamar Class

 The Trent Class

And last but not least the Waveney Class

 
I'm personally not very well up on the different types of lifeboats, but can recognise nice workmanship when I see it!, well done Ken and thanks for sharing your pictures with us all.
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Another Eureka Moment from Bob the Abell

I thought this idea up many years ago when building a 1/4 scale Piper Cub and was rewarded with an MFA motor set from one of the model aircraft magazines for suggesting it!

When you can`t get an elastic bound round something, like a giant Piper Cub fuz, I came up with the "S hook" idea........See photo........and an added bonus, is that you can add as many bands as you like for more clamping power!

Photo shows the "S hook" in action on the Great Eastern build

What`s the other idea, Bob?............Oh yes

You can get the bands for free!

The Postman drops them on the pavement, outside your front door!

Bob

This is part of a new series of Eureka Moments that can be found 

on the tab up at the top, or by clicking Here

That's all for now folks!.

Bitz and Bobz

Firstly to-day I have to tell you that Eddie Outen has decided to move house and because of this he is bringing a good selection of goodies from his modelling room to the next club meeting 28th Nov 2012, no boats I believe.

The lots will be auctioned off by the auctioneer Alan Higham and all the proceeds are to go to Club funds, so its a big thank you to Eddie for that.

He brought a box of assorted items to the last meeting that he offered for free, all sorts of goodies were in there, thanks for that Eddie!

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Whilst at the lake on Sunday took this video of Jeanie Deans on the lake.

Another Eureka moment for you!.

My first EM was discovering the idea of covering the hull of my Jeanie Deans At War with card strips with rivets punched through!

Not only did it save hours of filling and rubbing down, but has a realistic appearance

From then on.......Everything suitable had card and rivets.....as if you haven`t noticed!

It was a real treat painting the hull too!

What`s your Eureka Moment?

Bob

This is part of a new series of Eureka Moments that can be found 

on the tab up at the top, or by clicking here

That's all for now

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Eureka Moments

My mate Bob (the builder) Abell has for a few months now had a thread on Model boats magazine called Eureka Moments
 Click here
So I thought it was too good an idea not to be Abell to start one on this website, so contacted Bob for his OK before I pinched his idea and he said it was a good idea.
So this is my first one, hopefully other members will join in and then the ideas will all go into a tag at the top of the page same as the "Diary" and "For sale" sections for later additions to go into.

After carefully making up the Cod End Gantry for my Our Lass 2 over the plan in the instruction book  to make sure that it was all nice and square,! Realised its on a sloping deck!! and was sat at an angle, so I had what Mate Bob would call a Eureka moment and got out my laser  

This checks out the water line and also the vertical.

So after packing up to the red line was abell to find the amount to come off one side 

And there it is nice and square.

Then I had another Eureka moment, laser was too high on the shelf I'd attached it to!. 

Then thought would my camera tripod fit it?

And Eureka! it did.

So it all worked out a treat, so I'm going to put a few more bits and pieces on the structure to make it more sturdy looking and then its on to something else.

Hope you enjoyed this Eureka moment, in fact its buy one get two free to-day, (Water line, vertical and camera stand)

 I'm all for a good bargain!, why not send me an e-mail and share your Eureka moments  with us?.

Bye for now folks. 

This is part of a new series of Eureka Moments that can be found 

on the tab up at the top, or by clicking here

Complete list of builds. 2012

As stated in the last post here is a full list of pictures for the build entrants.

I felt it only fair that I stepped down last night from the judging panel as my son John had two entries in the competition, I would hope that my integrity was al-right but these things have to be seen to be right don't they.

Here are the pictures from the Sunday the 4th viewing

And the entrants from last nights viewing Wednesday the 14th.

A nice high standard this year don't you think?

can you spot which are the Kit, Semi-Scratch and Scratch built?

The results and trophies will be announced at the AGM on the 12th December. 

As announced last night there are a few positions up for re-election this year including mine as Members Rep, I don't wish to stand again this year, but have agreed to carry on with the website, been given a fancy title of Webmaster, but don't forget the web is only as good as the information and content given to me, you don't want my blithering on all the time I'm sure.

I've enjoyed my time on the committee in various rolls but my home commitments have changed, that's what the politicians say isn't it!.

Duckie