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Big Narrow boat model


GuildAero

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Hi all,

I seem to have been busy with narrow bots recently.  First, the 4mm scale one mentioned earlier, now the final work on the 1/24th scale model I was commissioned to make long before I retired.

 

This is a model of an old customer's friend's boat.  Newly commissioned, the builder alas, died last year suddenly and the whole boatyard was closed peremptorily while probate was decided. Neither I or the owner could get access to the boat until a couple of months ago and paint details, decals et al has taken subsequent weeks to get sorted out.

 

Here's the boat in primer.

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The rivetted sections are done with litho plate, impressed from behind with an oversized punch and anvil I made for the job, in a lovely machine I got for just £2 at the Sunday market locally.  Modern built boats with rivet detail actually have penny washers welded on purely for effect.  Since these boats are supposed to be based on the elegant Josher boats of days gone by, we traditionalists scathingly refer to them as "washer Joshers".  of course if somebody wants to pay five quid per washer to fool those who neither know nor care, that is entirely their affair.

 

More pics of the finished model at the weekend.

 

Cheers,

Martin

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  • 1 year later...

Richard, yes, it's a Steve Hudson boat, but he died when it was ready for paint and stalled while probate went through. But we got there in the end.

The owner, apparently, loves it.

 

Kev, yes, more or less, matey, thanks.  The NHS are wonderful people.

 

Oh and we moved home in that time too!

 

Martin

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I'm in and out of Glascote from time to time with my work.

 

And on and off Hudson boats as well, I have to visit 'Pathfinder' soon

 

You've definitely caught the shape of a Hudson with your model

 

Richard

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These are river boats I take it?

Stephen

 

No, these are canal boats. They are a weird development from water transport days. The UK developed a pretty sophisticated network of canals, many of which took boats around seven foot beam, up to seventy foot long. A boat that size would take around forty tons of coal and could be operated by a tiny crew, typically one or two.

 

Modern narrowboats follow on from these working boats, having the same beam, usually less draft and more air draft. They come in a variety of lengths and there are around 33,000 of them

 

I supply parts and repair engines for some of them

 

Richard

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You've missed the 'M' off the description...

 

I'm having an ongoing struggle with the water pump on a JP2M, not in a Hudson. I'm guessing that one is in a Hudson, it's got a PRM gearbox

 

You seem to have missed the bits of string off the hand start too - The ones that flip the decompressor levers after a few turns  B)

 

You have a really good eye for technical illustration, that's lovely

 

Richard

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Lee, my wife and I did live on one for 5 years, the famous Heather Bell. I ended up restoring her with 3 oak trees!  But I was unable to completely finish the work so sold her.

 

Richard, never heard a JP2 referred to as an M before, but it makes sense.

This particular one was sitting outside an engine repairer's place at Hillmorton. We stayed there a month or so.  Heather Bell had a JP2 for a lot of her life before we got her (when she had an SR3), so I just pencilled the engine 'ole of our wooden boat around the painted part of the picture. I confess I wouldn't know a Hurth gearbox if it bit me on the bum!

I had no space for modelmaking on the boat, so I took up painting, but I had trained as a technical illustrator many years before.

 

Martin

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