Crane story continued.. once the swash plate was connected via servo arms to the jib, I had to develop an arm to control them from a servo - pics attached. Once the bracket was attached to the servo, it allowed the jib to move up and down, whilst the turret rotated. I then had to work out how to rotate the turret! More photos to follow..

So, the crane story. Here are pics of the crane in it's original guise - essentially the jib raised and lowered and the turret rotated. I decided to add extensions to the jib internally, and then use servo arms to send them through the deck (inside the turret) such that a servo could raise and lower them from below deck. The issue was trying to get a mechanism that would allow the arm to raise/lower, whilst being able to rotate from inboard to outboard! Solution - a helicopter swash plate from a crashed Blade! The connection joints had to be moved around the swash plate (refixed with superglue) to make it symetrical. More photos to follow..

Here's a video of the crane in operation on the lake

Here's a video of the inner workings of the crane - video of operation on the water to follow...

Here's a heavily modified Seaport Workboat - Toby. Videos to follow - the crane now works in three axis, and it has sound courtesy of a Technobots sound module. The searchlight works, as do the radar, running lights and nav lights.

This is a video of my little Toby Tug (a seaport workboat in a previous life) very generously given to me by Bob Hutton from Stourbridge Model Boat club. it's shown at Bournville Tug Day yesterday (5th June 2016) on a Tug Tow of a 10 ft tanker - two small tugs giving it a try, when calamity - the front Tug got swamped by another (not very well-behaved) passerby and capsized - leaving Toby to pull both boats back to shore.. Enjoy!

Some more images of the Robert to enjoy,as I said before with a different colour scheme it is surprising how much character the boat has,but everyone has there own opinion

Stirling was one of the last generation of Rescue & Target Towing Launches built for the RAF and were designated Mk 3 RTTL and were delivered in the mid 1970's. The model is 1/24 scale and is 39inches L.o.a completed November 2015 from donated hull, all else is scratch built. twin 555 motors running at 12v with 2 x 6v 4a sla batteries in parallel, gives a good scale speed, and has about 45min endurance..

The Robert Broughty ferry lifeboat when it first appeared at the station (in Grey not Orange) Believe it or not I have never sailed her,only displayed I will put her on the water soon,the reason I chose grey as I do prefer the older lifeboats in grey as they have more character my opinion only,I have spoke to the owner of the real boat and he has said the only thing wrong is the flag pole , my is gold chrome not wooden (flag on front of hull) but when you get your transfers for nothing you don't worry.The real boat the Robert is in the Orkney islands at Kirkwall and you can go on trips on her

Lovely size model to transport about,sails very well on water,lots of interest from the public when I displayed it on the LBES stand at warwick,even the compare was shocked when talking about individual lifeboats,he said I cannot give you any information as I don't know who's boat it is and I will have to speak to the owner as I'm stumped(the crowd laughed)

This was a static model, that the gentleman I got it off had it for two years and when I asked why don't you put it in a box his reply was the box would be to high at 36" so I said to him is it radio control,NO static model only but can be converted,so I brought it and also showed him that if you move the tube slider on the mast it folds(one unhappy chappy),so I set about radio controlling it with a smoke unit(water) and it gets quite a bit of attention at shows because it's different,the model is based on the Queen from new Brighton 1897-1923

Finished the repairs took to a beautiful fountain in a dream park to test it