The Tika – 1971 Auckland Harbour Tug

[sea monkey]

Getting there– hopefully

[Kiwinz]

The pegs used on the bulwark construction give it's some size perspective! I'd not logged in for many weeks and your already half way through! Nice little tug. What colour scheme..blue/white version or with a flash of orange/black?

[sea monkey]

Hi Simon. This one is blue and white only – all blue from the neck down. I'm making it as it was on the day I was onboard, 18 months ago.

[sea monkey]

I've been slowly chipping away at the hull and its starting to take shape.

I've smoothed out the bulwarks and added the capping rail. On this tug the capping rail is steel tubing so some 1.5mm styrene rod was just right at 1/50. Some of the bulwark knees needed to be sanded down flush with the rail but it's all working now.

The propellor shaft bases are in.

Also cut out the freeing ports/scuppers. The ones second from each end are where the bulwark gates go.

[sea monkey]

What is the correct term for the gate/hatch/door in the bulwark?

Anyway, these holes have the radius curve at the bottom rather than the top, as on the scuppers.

[sea monkey]

You can see how I've sanded down through the various layers of ply in my attempt to sort out the hull. Hopefully that's all of the heavy duty sanding and filling on the hull – touch wood.

[sea monkey]

I tend judge a model by the quality of its hull so I'm always a bit overly fussy with my hulls in case anyone else is as pedantic as me. I'm about as satisfied with this one as I'll ever get, now, so I can move on to some other tasks.

Next up: the propellor guard.

This tug has an unusual (for New Zealand anyway) propellor guard. It looks like it was to protect the props from hitting the sea bed – the Manakau Harbour is quite shallow in parts and has a 4m tide. Luckily I have several photos of the Tika out of the water and they show the set up pretty well.

[sea monkey]

I decided to make the guard from brass strip sandwiched between strip styrene. It's a simple method and I'm trying not to buy any new material and use up stuff from the offcuts box.

Here's the brass base so far. I'm always nervous about cutting holes into a perfectly good hull.

[VANYA]

Looking good Steve.

What diameter are those props?

How is Wellington? A few days inside and a bit of wild weather? Snow on the hills here so definate Autumn feel.

Did you find those Koranui lines drawing?

Hayden

[sea monkey]

Well that went well.

The styrene/brass sandwich method worked out fine. The brass spine is very strong and the styrene allows me to glue various sections onto it. The outer ends are glued into slots in the hull and the centre strip is pinned into the foot of the keel. It's not going anywhere.

The shafts have a collar and V struts attached to the hull, and another lower brace that also forms the heel/foot of the rudder. These last parts are not very robust without the rudders attached.

[sea monkey]

It all looks straight and true. So far so good...

The next step is attaching a couple of vanes/guards onto the cage. You can see them in the photos of Tika out of the water. Not sure what they are for – could be to prevent prop wash – they don't seem to offer any protection for the props.

[mike_victoriabc]

Interesting build!

The V struts and brace - are those styrene glued to your brass support?

Where did you get your props from - nice looking units.

Thanks for the detailed progress.

[sea monkey]

Thanks Mike,
The props are Raboesch, from Cornwall Model Boat Supplies in the UK..

The struts, etc are styrene and glued onto the styrene sheet that is laminated to the brass strip base.
The styrene strip is CA glued onto the brass. Thin styrene cement for the styrene on styrene. All seems pretty solid so far. Haven't had a brass/styrene failure yet and the styrene cement is like liquid soldering.

[sea monkey]

 I need to add the vanes/splash guards to the cage, but first the fenders.

They are basswood cut to fit snug with the curve of the hull at the deck line. They are attached in sections to align with the sheer of the deck and will be sanded down to the correct width – and given a radiuses edge to look like a rubber fender. Basswood is such a nice material to work with.

That's the last major work on the hull. Next I have to add the fender housing details and then the vanes. I've left this part of the build until now as I don't want to give them any rough handling – any repairs later will be very difficult and time consuming.

[sea monkey]

Pressing too many keys too late at night