"Cap'n Mikey" Canadian Logging Tug

November 2024

Finally after a lot of hard work Cap'n Mikey is now completed.  To say the build was a challenge would be extremely diplomatic but I got there in the end!  

Starting with the mast and lights the assembly and separation of all the different lights on the mast was quite a nightmare (check the photo). Eventually, after a large dose of patience I had all the lights wired in with individual resistors which enables all the lighting to be powered from the main 12 volt battery. I duly epoxied the mast in place and then fixed the  flying bridge to the wheelhouse, also with epoxy resin. 

Time to check everything was working correctly : Radar - fine, Mast running lights - fine, Deck lights - not fine, the port side lower 3 lights didn’t light up. Access to the wiring is not possible without stripping off the wheelhouse roof and removing the mast from the flying bridge so big problem. After checking all the wiring and LED’s out I eventually found the problem which was a dry joint on the negative wires which are all soldered to the brass main mast (thanks for your help and advice Paul). 

Now it was time for final assembly and into the water for ballasting and trials. The first trial I was getting water into the hull from the stern hatch. To cure this I fitted a 1/8th ply flat coming to the deck, raising the hatch by this amount, with a smear of vaseline along the hatch edge to make the seal watertight. I also moved the battery further to the stern to help solve the problem. 

A little ballast was needed as she is quite a heavy hull.  The helm response was excellent and she spins in her own length using tank steering. I am really pleased with the performance of the Component shop motors (I’ve not tried these motors before) which give good torque and scale speed. 

All in all the outcome of the challenge of chopping a hull in half and scratch building from photos has been a success which was confirmed by the positive comments I received on the stand at Blackpool.  

I hope that you all enjoyed the build log, many thanks to Pete Colley for his work in publishing the log, much appreciated. If anyone in the Club want's advice or to ask how I did certain things during the build just speak to me at the pond and I’ll try to help.

October 2024            

When I started this build I wanted to make the model as realistic as possible and I spent quite a lot of time checking out working tugs from Canada.  This is my take on the Wheelhouse interior and the flying bridge.  All of the  furniture and cabinets in the wheelhouse were made from styrene sheet, and the table and bench were covered with veneer.  The console instruments are part of a set from "Macs Mouldings" (Mac will be at Blackpool) which I cut down and modified to suit my console.  The cooker I made myself.  

Flying bridges usually have a console cabinet with a duplicate set of controls for the Skipper to operate and are normally used when close into the logs at the raft assembly stage, the deckhand will be walking on the loose logs as the tug pushes them together so the Skipper needs to be up higher for better vision and safety  of the crew. I made the console from styrene and the ships wheel is one of Brian's painted in Halfords chrome enamel.  The fire extinguishers are from Mark's model bits. The life-raft I made myself using a small piece of plastic conduit pipe, some “I” section plastic and two strips of very thin styrene to form the bands. 

I now have the mast back from Steve so can start the checking and painting process then, hopefully, fit everything together and epoxy the mast and the flying bridge to the wheelhouse (providing everything works correctly). Next month will be about the final assembly and hopefully ballasting/Maiden voyage.

September 2024            

The lights and wiring for the Nav lights and Searchlights are now done and fixed securely underneath the Flying bridge floor so I decided to start the painting of the wheelhouse inside and outside. As I planned to paint the outside in two colours with white gloss above the waistline and orange gloss on the lower section I painted the  inside of the wheelhouse in white, left it for 2 days to harden and then all the windows were masked off ready to spray.  I sprayed the top part in white first (this was done in oil based gloss) and, once this had hardened, I masked off the top section and sprayed on the orange gloss (Halfords acrylic rattle can).

Disaster! On the joint line I had a major reaction to the two paints which meant I had to remove all the handles and grab rails then spend a happy (not) morning rubbing it all back to the primer, "note to self, don't spray Halfords acrylic over oil based paint".

Once I’d come back down to earth from the shed roof I re-primed the wheelhouse and sprayed the whole exterior red with my airbrush using gloss red enamel.  As the flying bridge had been sprayed white gloss earlier this gave a nice contrast.

Now we get to the difficult part of constructing the mast  from brass tubing. Due to the 17 individual lights that are on the mast it was going to be a "challenge". I like to isolate each LED with its own wiring which meant a total of 34 wires to hide which is impossible so after much thinking and requesting advice I chose to use the brass mast as the negative side of the lighting circuit. This meant that each LED had to have its negative terminal soldered to the brass mast then a common wire soldered to the base of the mast to complete the circuit.Time to call in my mate Steve (soldering is not one of my better skills) who, as we speak, is completing the soldering for me. I hope to get the mast back from Steve tomorrow (Thursday  12th September). This will then allow me to begin the assembly of the main mast with its working radar and the brass rear mast with its 17 lights.

The photos show the wiring under the flying bridge floor, the paint nightmare and the dry build of the brass mast. Next month will be the fittings inside the wheelhouse and the fittings on the flying bridge.

August 2024            

The next stage of the build was to construct the flying bridge sitting on top of the wheelhouse. After a lot of research and looking at photos on the internet I finally made a pattern. I started the actual construction using 4mm Foamex to make the base shape and then covered the whole superstructure with 1/32nd Birch plywood.           

As you can see in the photos it's quite a tricky shape. The flying bridge has two forward facing searchlights and recessed Navigation lights. I wanted the wiring for these lights to be hidden so I decided to make and fit a false floor to the unit so that all the wiring will be hidden underneath this floor.

The next stage will be to construct the mast and radar support, both of which will definitely be a challenge. That part of the build will be in next month's instalment.

July 2024

After a thorough wash off and flat down with 600 wet n dry the hull was ready for primer, this was applied in two coats with a day drying properly between each coat. Next stage was to mask off the water line which was quite tricky due to the very high bow that logging tugs have.  Once that was done I masked everything off (Pete's tip : for the actual  waterline use Tamiya masking tape it's the best and leaves a very good blob free sharp line) then two coats of Halfords satin black with a day between each coat to dry properly. 

I left the hull to harden for a week before any further work so as not to damage the paintwork. It was now time to start making patterns of the wheelhouse to make sure everything looked right (interesting as there are no plans, just my take on photos and a lot of trial and error). I start by making a cardboard pattern which I tweak until it  looks correct.  I then construct the actual wheelhouse in "Foamex" 4mm thickness. Due to the steep slope from the bow which all logging tugs have it's a challenge to get the wheelhouse in the correct vertical plane especially with all the different angles around the windows and the camber port to starboard of the deck. The photos show the first stage of the construction.  More to follow next month!

June 2024 Part 2

The second stage of the build was to work out where the battery and wheelhouse would be located which was a bit tricky as the tug is scratch built from photos.  Once I had figured out the layout I fitted the deck timbers and 3mm birch plywood deck, sealed, primed and did the final paint finish in satin grey ready to start the cross planking that is common on Canadian logging tugs.  

I wanted to have total access to the internals of the tug with no components inaccessible so I made a removable stern hatch which covers approximately two thirds of the deck, this was cross planked then the bow section was started (shown in the photos). The planking is Spruce  1mm x 5mm stuck down with superglue using 1.5mm spacers to keep a uniform gap, this then received 3 coats of satin varnish. Next job was fitting the Bulwark Cappings and making a tow roller for the stern, the roller was made from a 4mm prop shaft cut down and the bearing re located. The solid fibreglass stern was cut out and shaped to locate the roller. 

Logging tugs take an awful lot of bashes and bangs with the weight of the logs that they have to push and tow which means that most of the hulls are very heavy duty and kind of corrugated along with a saw tooth fender at the bow (mine is made from a piece of aluminium channel filed to shape),  my hull was flat so I decided to fit 5x10mm solid rubber to the hull to simulate the corrugations (shown in the photos). I also added extra width to the rubbing rail and fixed rubber blocks and tyres right round the hull, this was all done prior to painting  otherwise they only stick to the paint surface and will come off at the first collision.

That's it for now, more to follow with the painting done then start of the wheelhouse.