Hi.

Having messed about attaching files which I hope I am getting the hang of I thought I thought I had better get on with further etching. Nothing to do with railways I'm afraid. I mentioned the building of the SS Raven which was the the start of my second ship building period. The first was was during the war While the rest of my classmates were into building Spitfires and Hurricanes and the like I was into building British warships. The drawings for these were produced by a firm called Modelcraft. Prices of these drawings varied from sixpence for a submarine to halfacrown (two shillings and sixpence) for a battleship or aircraft carrier. I earned six shillings a week as a paper boy.Wow. Back to the Windermere vessels. The second model was the M.S. Tern, the one with the bows like a canoe. Construction was to the same principal as Raven, balsawood hull and plasticard upperworks. and then there was the stanchions..As a keen scratch builder I wanted to produce my own.I have no recollection of how I stumbled on the idea of etching them but here's method The material is 40 thou copper wire out of twin and earth electric cable. The ball shaped bit through which the horizontal rails go was wrapped with a sliver of selotape, three to a stanchion. Several at a time were put in a flat plastic container containing the etch fluid.When the required depth of etch was reached the embryo stanchions were drilled 20 thou for the rails at the unetched part. Yes I bought the drill bits by the dozen. The drilled sections were then rounded off in a home made power drilling machine .I the simplest terms the drill was a pin chuck driven by a three speed motor out of a food mixer..The bloke is nuts. The stanchion numbers on Tern was't to bad and they were all three holers .After completing Tern I had a rest from scratch building and and built the Matchbox Corvette. I built radio control into this which included the 4 inch gun traversing.. On a holiday in Scarbrough I sailed it on the lake used for the naval battles. While in the middle of the lake the R/C failed. It took ages for the wind to blow it to shore.

Turning to Swan. This was built on the Plank and frame method but using plasticard instead of wood. But, oh those those stanchions. 128 of them and some went through to the upper deck. This was truly a task of mammoth proportions but having built the hull there was no going back. She was the last of boat building for some years. My models of Tern and Swan both of which had R/C are now on show on Pier 1 at Bowness. If these blogs about non railway stuff are getting a bit boring let me know. Finally, I am hoping attach to a couple of images of Dennis Allenden's wonderfull modelling skills. It was Dennis who brought etching to my attention. Cheers, Derek